No fewer than 46 people reportedly tested positive for Lassa Fever in Benue State.
Among those confirmed positives are health workers and four internally displaced persons in an Ortese IDP camp located in Guma LGA of the state.
Consequently, nine people were also confirmed dead as a result of the disease across the state.
The state epidemiologist, Dr. Sam Ngishe, disclosed this to newsmen during a telephone chat on Thursday.
He added that the disease had spread to seven of the 23 local government areas of the state and identified the affected council areas, including Obi, Okpokwu, Gwer West, Makurdi, Guma, Gwer East, and Ukum.
Dr Ngishe explained that the fatality rate of the disease was on the high side in the state and stated that the state was working towards reducing it.
According to him, “nine deaths have been confirmed, and they have been buried in accordance with safe burial protocols across the various areas of the state where they hail from.
“We are hoping to reduce the number of deaths so that the key fatality rate for the state is less than 10 per cent, which is what the nation expects from all of the states. For now, what we have is above that figure.
The epidemiologist reeled out measures already taken to include sustaining response through the intervention of the federal government through the World Bank and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
He added, “We have also spoken loudly to enhance our surveillance efforts and risk communication (creating social behaviour change) in the community. We have also spoken to the laboratory component of the response and coordination.
“There is active surveillance going on in the community (housing the Ortese IDP camp), as you know the IDP camp is a cluster setting with very poor infection control in terms of poor sanitation, a crowded environment, and issues of malnutrition.
“And from our report so far, the IDP camp has a high population of rats, so if the rats transmitting such are within the IDP camps, it means that we need to work hard so we don’t have an outbreak that will be difficult to control.”
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