An unidentified three-year-old girl has died of lassa fever complications after she was confirmed positive by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) laboratory test.
It brings the death toll of lassa fever to 18 with 47 confirmed positive cases in 2020.
Information Officer of the Bauchi Primary Healthcare Agency, Ibrahim Sani, disclosed these in a statement on Friday.
He ssid Executive Chairman of the Primary Healthcare Agency, Dr Rilwanu Mohammed, has instructed all the four pillars of the Lsssa Rapid Response teams in the state to swing into action to reduce the intensity of the outbreaks in all the identified communities.
The statement reads: “47 persons have been confirmed positive this year with 18 number of deaths from confirmed cases of lassa fever.”
“The agency received a shocking report of a three year old female who died of Lassa fever complications two weeks ago after she was confirmed positive by the NCDC laboratory test as three new cases were also reported with 2 from Toro while Tafawa Balewa reported 1 new case.”
“With this new development, the Executive Chairman has instructed all the four pillar of the Rapid Response Teams of the state such as surveillance and contact tracing, case management, environmental management and risk communication to swing into action so as to robustly, downscale the intensity of these outbreaks in all the indentified communities in Bauchi state.”
“One of the challenges is the fact that results are being delayed by the Abuja NCDC National Reference Laboratories after it has been sent for investigation.”
“So far, about 60 samples of suspected yellow fever cases and another 63 samples of Lassa fever were sent for an investigation for the past 11 days.”
