Lassa Fever: Kano confirms one dead, two others infected

2026-02-16 - 21:59

By Bashir Bello Kano Centre for Disease Control, KNCDC, has confirmed one person dead and two others, a doctor and another woman, infected by Lassa Fever in the state. The Centre’s Director General, Prof. Mohammed Adamu confirmed this while addressing newsmen in the state. Prof. Adamu said the deceased, a worker with Medicine Sans Frontier died as a result of Lassa fever while the two others came down with the disease after interface with the victim. He said immediately the centre activated the contact tracing on others who had interface with persons who had tested positive. According to him, “We recorded case of Lassa fever but were able to bring the situation under control. “On the 28th January, a white woman from France who worked with Medicine Sans Frontier. After a week of coming to Nigeria, she came down with fever. She went to the hospital where she was given medications. After three days, she discovered the illness was deteriorating as she was bleeding. So she went to a hospital, KNC. Unfortunately, she passed away on that same day. They moved her corpse to the mortuary at AKTH and later we were informed about the development. So we collected her blood sample to carry out series of test and she tested positive to Lassa fever. So we discovered a doctor from Minjibir who had earlier had an interface with her also came down with the infection and also one other woman. “The two people had interface with 62 people within 5 local government areas in the state. Out of the 62, we thought 25 were at risk of being infected. We took blood sample of the 25 people out of which 22 tested negative while three tested positive. One is dead, two were in isolation (the woman is isolated in AKTH while the male (Doctor) from Minjibir is taken to Yargaya isolation centre). “We have deployed our personnel to intensify public enlightenment in Minjibir to sensitize the people. Then, the Ministry of Environment will be invited in order to visit and furmigate the affected areas. All suspected areas must be furmigated to flush out rats which are major carrier of this disease to prevent the further spread,” Prof. Adamu however stated.