Death usually occurs within 14 days of onset in fatal cases and severe late in pregnancy, with maternal death and/or fetal loss occurring in more than 80 percent of cases during the third trimester. Diagnosis Lassa fever is difficult to distinguish from other viral haemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola virus disease as well as other diseases that cause fever, including malaria, shigellosis, typhoid fever and yellow fever. Definitive diagnosis requires testing that is available only in reference laboratories. Laboratory specimens may be hazardous and must be handled with extreme care.
Treatment
There is currently no vaccine that protects against Lassa fever. The antiviral drug ribavirin seems to be an effective treatment for Lassa fever if given early on in the course of clinical illness. There is no evidence to support the role of ribavirin as post-exposure prophylactic treatment.
Lassa timeline (pls box this)
Lassa fever is not new to Nigerians. The first ever documented case of Lassa fever was reported in Nigeria in 1969 when two missionary nurses died in a town called Lassa in the part of Nigeria now known as Borno State. They had complaints of weakness, headaches, fever and general malaise. A study in the journal Cell by a team that included Christian Happi of Irrua Specialist Hospital—where experts confirm strains of Lassa fever in samples had traced “ancient roots” of Lassa nearly 1,000 years to a region that is now present-day Nigeria. Up till 2008, specimens were flown abroad for confirmation. Since 2008, two centres have stepped in to fill the gap in laboratory diagnosis and research into the fever—Lassa Fever Research and Control Centre at Irrua Specialist Hospital, Edo, and Lahor Research. Samples from the latest outbreaks have undergone confirmation at Irrua, which also provided confirmation for cases from 2012 onwards. In 2012, the number of cases peaked in 2012, when 1,723 cases with 112 fatalities were recorded.
In 2012, half a million vials of Ribavirin, an antiviral drug considered effective were procured after the first case of Lassa was reported in Ebonyi. By then, one doctor and up to four nurses had died, some others were hospitalised at Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakiliki. Lassa fever has the greatest impact among haemorrhagic fevers—rivalled only by dengue. Up to 300,000 are infected annually in West Africa alone, and an estimated 5,000 of them die. During 2012 and 2013, more than 2900 cases were reported in widespread outbreaks that occurred across many states.
In 2013, three deaths—among them a health worker, it struck in Benue and Ondo States. Since the last quarter of 2015, the country has been battling the epidemic disorder, which at the last count, has reached 24 states and killed 154 people. More than 684 suspected cases have so far been recorded in the Borno, Gombe, Yobe, Taraba, Plateau, Nasarawa, Ebonyi, Edo, Ondo, Rivers, Bauchi, Anambra, Lagos, Niger, Kano, Nassarawa, Plateau, Oyo, Gombe and Ondo, Kano states and the FCT amongst others and still counting.
