Lassa fever, cholera, monkeypox, measles kill 650, infect 30,812 in 33 states

ABOUT 650 persons died from 30,812 confirmed cases of Lassa fever, cholera, measles and monkeypox infections across 33 states in Nigeria.

  Director-General of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Ifedayo Adetifa, gave the figures in Abuja during a ministerial briefing and update on COVID-19 response and developments in the health sector.

  According to Adetifa, while 233 deaths were recorded from a total of 10, 217 suspected cases of cholera in 31 states this year, there were 933 cases and 173 deaths from Lassa fever from 25 states.

  Explaining the pattern as a 47 per cent increase in number of new cholera cases in August epidemiological report compared with July epidemiological week, Adetifa also said Nigeria has so far recorded 1,180 suspected cases of monkeypox with seven deaths.

  “We continue to respond by providing treatment and infection prevention, as there are larger regional or international activities in terms of preparing for vaccine trials. Early phase of vaccine trial for Lassa fever, for instance, has started in Liberia and there had been efforts to look at clinical drug development pathways. These are all in a bid to ensure that we reduce fatality which stands at two digits now, to hopefully a single digit,” he said.

  In his update on measles, Adetifa said so far, there had been 18,545 confirmed cases and 234 deaths while seven persons died from 1,180 cases of monkeypox this year.