2024-01-07 17:33:00
The Nigerian Center for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) recorded cases of Lassa fever throughout 2023. Between the start of 2023 and mid-December, 1,201 cases were confirmed, including 210 deaths. Additionally, 8,800 suspected cases were reported.
In 2023, 28 states have recorded at least one confirmed case. Seventy-six percent (76%) of all confirmed cases of Lassa fever have been reported in the States ofOndod’Or and of Bauchi.
Reminders on the Lassa fever :
The Lassa fever is a hemorrhagic fever caused by Arénaviridae the virus Lassa. It is endemic in several West African countries, Nigeria, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where epidemic outbreaks occur regularly and affect 100 to 300,000 people per year, including 5 to 6,000 succumb.
The main virus reservoir Lassa is a small peri-domestic rodent called Mastomys natalensis.
The virus transmitted to humans by contact with food or household items contaminated by rodent urine or feces. A large number of these rodents live near or even inside homes, and their infection rate can be up to 80%. Contacts between humans and the infected reservoir are therefore very frequent in villages. The virus can also infect the body through a cut or wound or when infected rats are prepared as meals that are sold along the roads. Transmission occurs from human to human through direct contact with the blood, urine, excrement or other organic secretions of a contaminated person, particularly in a hospital context. Contact with the virus can also occur through inhalation of air contaminated with fine suspended particles that contain excretions. Transmission can be done at the level of analysis laboratories. Sexual transmission has been reported.
The risk to the traveler is extremely low.
The clinical picture Lassa fever varies, from asymptomatic infection, which is very common (80% of cases) to severe hemorrhagic fever. The disease begins 6 to 21 days after infection with non-specific clinical signs: fever, vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, headache, myalgia, arthralgia, asthenia. In severe cases, symptoms then worsen, with the appearance of edema, hemorrhagic signs, pericardial and pleural effusions, and more rarely encephalitis. The patient died in a context of hypotensive and hypovolemic shock and renal and hepatic failure.
Lassa fever is extremely serious for pregnant women, frequently leading to the death of the mother and systematically to that of the fetus.
No vaccine is currently not available. Today there is only one antiviral, ribavirinwhich must be administered very soon after the appearance of symptoms and whose effectiveness remains poorly demonstrated.
Source : Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Fitfortravel
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