The Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) has alerted the Borno State Government and that of other states experiencing flood on the risk of disease outbreaks such as Cholera, Diarrhoea and other waterborne diseases.
Director General of the NCDC, Dr. Jide Idris disclosed this on Wednesday, September 11, 2024 while fielding questions from journalists in Abuja.
Dr. Idris who harped on adopting a preventive approach to epidemics stated, “for those states, let us prepare their mind because people get carried away with containing the cause of the flood such that the consequences of the flood are neglected because these come later”.
He hinted that in response to the flood, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) would have an EOC meeting with the NCDC and other relevant agencies tomorrow.
Speaking on Lassa Fever, the DG said, “this year alone, Lassa fever cases, meningitis cases were more in number and death rates this year than we saw in previous years. We do not want that to happen again in the next season, so there is need to start taking precautionary approaches now before they get at us”.
He however informed that there was a downward trend in Lassa fever and meningitis cases but may record and increase since they were seasonal.
“We’ve seen a downward trend in Lassa fever and meningitis since we deactivated the EOC, we also know that in the next couple of months, because these are seasonal, we are likely to be seeing increasing cases of those diseases again so it is incumbent on us to prepare for situations and strategies that will not allow us to see many of those cases as possible next season”, he said.
The DG informed that from January 1st to August 25th, 2024, Nigeria recorded 7973 Suspected Cases and 982 Confirmed Cases of Lassa Fever in 28 States and 127 Local Government Areas (LGAs).
He disclosed that a cumulative of 168 deaths were recorded so far from the disease but none was recorded between
19th to 25th of August 2024.
He stated that a total of 4915 suspected cases of cerebrospinal meningitis including 361 death had been reported from 24 states in the 2023/2024 season.
He explained that, a total of 859 samples were collected from the reported suspected cases since the beginning of the outbreak, and 378 were confirmed (44% positivity rate)
The NCDC Boss further disclosed that the age group 5 -14 years were reported the most affected, adding that 60% of the total suspected cases were Male.
He said the five most affected states were Yobe with 3014 cases, Bauchi with 517, Jigawa with 389, Katsina with 352, and Gombe with 316 cases respectively, accounting for 93% of all cases reported.
According to Dr. Jide, “there has been an increase in number of cases (4915) by 157% in 2023/2024 season compared with (1914) cases in 2022/2023 season”.
