The death toll from the Lassa fever outbreak in Nigeria has hit 216, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has said.
While Nigeria and the rest of the world are focused on containing the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the nation is also struggling to put an end to the Lassa fever.
Nigeria, since January, has been battling the scourge of Lassa fever n the country.
An epidemiological report from NCDC for week 25 shows that 1,036 people have so far contracted the disease with 216 deaths.
While COVID-19 is a new global disease with less epidemiological information, Lassa fever has become endemic in Nigeria. The country has battled it annually for the past 50 years.
Although the infection rate for Lassa fever outbreak in the country has slowed down, the spread of COVID-19 virus has continued to increase.
As of Friday, Nigeria recorded a total number of 23,298 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 554 deaths.
NCDC had declared the Lassa fever outbreak emergency phase for this year over on April 28.
The public health agency said this emergency phase was declared over based on “composite indicators national threshold”.(Premium Times)
