Posted on: Mon 24-01-2022

The Federal Government, through the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), is partnering d other stakeholders to undertake activities geared at containing Lassa fever in Nigeria.

Consequently, they have embarked on environmental health and sanitation response campaign in 11 states to ensure compliance with sanitation, food hygiene and safety.

Minister of State for Environment, Sharon Ikeazor, who made the disclosure in Abuja, noted that Nigeria was experiencing increasing number of reported Lassa fever, explaining: “We have strengthened activities on health and sanitation response to the disease outbreak in the country.”

She stated: “The most recent situation report from the NCDC of January 16, 2022 indicated 96 confirmed cases and 11 deaths from January 3 to 16 in 27 Local Government Areas (LGAs) across 11 states.

Ikeazor, therefore, cited endemic states as follows: Bauchi, Edo, Ondo, Benue, Taraba, Kaduna, Plateau, Kogi, Cross River, Ebonyi and Oyo. This is in addition to the 510 confirmed cases and 102 deaths that occurred from January 2021 to date”.

The minister revealed that before the recent outbreak, they had taken proactive measures to improve the overall sanitation and hygiene situation by establishing sanitation desks in all the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to ensure proper monitoring.

She went on: “This is in addition to the setting up of environmental health surveillance systems designed to strengthen cooperation between the states and the Federal Government on environmental health and sanitation issues, which aid information/data gathering and sharing between the federal, state and local governments.

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