The Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has disclosed that Lassa fever has claimed 70 lives since the beginning of 2026.
It stated that five states, namely, Edo, Ondo, Taraba, Bauchi and Ebonyi, accounted for 91 per cent of the Lassa fever cases recorded so far across the country, with 10 LGAs in the states accounting for 68 per cent of cases.
Director General of NCDC, Dr. Jide Idris, told journalists at a press conference in Abuja, on Friday, that since the beginning of the year till 15th February, the country has recorded 1, 469 suspected Lassa fever cases, 318 confirmed cases, and 70 deaths indicating 22.0 per cent Case Fatality Ratio (CFR).
He said that NCDC has taken several measures to contain the challenge in partnership with the State governments. “Sadly, some State governments are not helping our efforts to tackle the Lassa fever challenge.”
He registered the concerns of the NCDC on the observed sharp increase in healthcare worker infection, attributing it to poor Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) in hospitals in the high burden locations, low index of suspicion where healthcare workers do not suspect Lassa fever when patients present to them, and even when healthcare workers get exposed and get sick, they don’t go for treatment early ususlly due to fear of stigma.
The NCDC boss recorded that state ownership is still a major challenge for the NCDC, and one key challenge is still connected to the role that States must play particularly in contact tracing. “What we are seeing is that cases are not been traced by states, and people are not reported. That is what is making the CFR high.
“In many cases, no funding is provided at the State level for robust awareness activities, and this has made it difficult for risk communication and community engagement activities to go on. This is very important in changing behaviour in the highly affected communities
“We also noticed that some treatment centres are not up to standard, while some do not have secured premises. We have received reports of patients absconding thus putting everyone at risk,” he said.
Dr. Idris also noted non-utilization of NCDC donated aialysis machine in the some treatment centres to manage complicated cases. “Sadly, we also observed that some facilities are charging high fees, and some are not utilizing the machines and dailayis at all. These are very important in the management of Lassa fever patients.
“State-level resource limitations are also hindering the consistent availability of essential Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) required for staff safety. Also, data feedback and reporting mechanisms at both the state and facility levels are currently functioning below the expected standard; even as we observed deficiency in state and facility-level commitment toward maintaining IPC programmes, particularly within endemic regions.
Meanwhile, the NCDC boss confirmed that Incident Management System (IMS) has been activated to coordinate the national response and what happens at the state level, and additionally, hold regular weekly National Lassa fever EOC meetings.
“NCDC has also deployed National Rapid Response Team to eight reporting states, namely, Bauchi, Ondo, Taraba, Edo, Plateau, Benue Plateau and Jigawa States, and we have plans to send out more as the need arises.
“We have also sent Lassa fever laboratory testing commodities to all our laboratory network; distributed medical counter measures across the country. These are things needed to treat Lassa fever cases as well as the items that healthcare workers need to protect themselves while treating patients such as , PPEs (gloves, face masks, gowns) sanitizers, etc.”
He encouraged state governments to intensify active case search and contact tracing; scale up community risk communication and rumour management; address treatment cost barrier that may delay care-seeking and increase mortaliy; fully enforce IPC practices in all health facilities in their state; and coordinate state team to ensure they work together and stop rivalry.
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