The Nigerian Centre for Disease Control and Prevention -NCDC, has given a death toll of 14 people in a total of 10 states, who have died from suspected cases of yellow fever from January to July 2022. This news was announced via NCDC’s official website on Sunday.
The affected states were: Abia (1), Bayelsa (1), Benue (1), Imo (1), Kaduna (1), Katsina (2), Kebbi (1), Taraba (2), Yobe (1), and Zamfara (3).
According to the World Health Organisation -WHO, yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes. The symptoms of the fever include fever, headache, jaundice, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, and fatigue. However, a tiny percentage of patients who contract the virus develop severe symptoms and an estimated half of those die within seven to 10 days.
The Nigerian Public Health Institute has reported that cumulatively, an average of 1,179 suspected cases of yellow fever were reported from 416 local government areas between 1st January and 31st July 2022.
Meanwhile, the NCDC is coordinating its response activities through the National Multi-agency Yellow Fever Technical Working Group. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, there has been an upsurge in the increase of the risk of measles and the probable increase in yellow fever outbreaks due to delayed planned vaccination campaigns that are usually done in the country.
On a fortunate note, yellow fever is preventable with an extremely effective vaccine that is safe and affordable.
