The Institute of Lassa Fever Research and Control at Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital in Nigeria’s Edo State, one of the regions worst affected by the outbreak of Lassa fever (Picture: Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images)
Nigeria is exterminating rats in an effort to contain a deadly virus that causes bleeding from the eyes in humans.
The Lassa fever, which is spread by the rodents, has killed 85 people in Nigeria so far this year.
In total, 2,629 people had been infected in the West African country by February 18, according to the latest report by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last year saw the worst outbreak on record.
The number of cases this year is roughly the same as this time last year, but deaths are slightly lower.
The Lassa virus that causes the disease is one of the pathogens most likely to cause a pandemic alongside ebola, Covid-19 and zika. according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Minister of State for Environment Iziaq Salako said: ‘We are targeting a reduction of the outbreak so that it cannot escalate to any other state.
‘We are embarking on deratisation and awareness creation at the community level as part of the preventive measures.
‘So, basically we are putting measures in place to make sure that there is massive deratisation to reduce the population of the vectors that cause the disease.
‘We will focus on communities and states that are prone to the disease annually.’
Most prevalent in the winter months, Lassa fever causes headache, sore throat, muscle pain, weakness, vomiting, diarrhoea and coughing.
One in five people with the disease have it so severely it causes bleeding from the eyes, nose, mouth and vagina.
In some cases, Lassa fever causes seizures, facial swelling and loss of hearing that partially returns after up to three months.
It can take 21 days for symptoms to appear, with death occurring within two weeks in fatal cases.
Most people with the virus never develop symptoms, and the overall fatality rate is 1%.
But this rises to 15% for people who are hospitalised with the disease, making early diagnosis and treatment crucial.
However, it is hard to tell it apart from other viral haemorrhagic fevers like typhoid, ebola and malaria.
Lassa fever kills almost all fetuses when the virus is contracted during pregnancy.
The latest data from Nigeria puts the case fatality rate around 18% since infections surged at the start of this year.
Poor sanitation and low access to healthcare are major obstacles to containing the outbreak and limiting deaths.
Lassa fever is mostly found in Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Togo and Nigeria.
But it’s also spread to the UK.
Fears of an outbreak spread here when three cases were confirmed and a newborn baby died in 2022, the first time Lassa fever had been detected in the country since 2009.
The first of these was a person who had recently travelled to Mali, while the other two were family members.
How does Lassa fever spread?
All cases of Lassa fever in the UK have been related to travel in West Africa.
It can be spread between people if they come into contact with the blood, urine, semen, saliva or feces of an infected person.
This makes healthcare workers and their families particularly susceptible to catching the Lassa virus that causes the disease.
However, most people catch it from rats
Lassa virus is endemic in the rat population in parts of West Africa, according to the WHO.
They’re so abundant in the most affected regions, ‘it is not possible to eliminate them from the environment’ and there is no licensed vaccine.
The WHO instead advises deterring rats from entering your home by keeping the house clean, storing food in sealed containers, disposing of rubbish away from the house, and keeping cats.
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