Ondo is sixth state to confirm Lassa fever

Ondo state has recorded its first case of the dreaded Lassa fever which has killed several people across the states of the federation in just a year.

Punch reports that the case was detected at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) in Owo area of the state when a victim who came from Edo State went to the FMC to treat malaria fever but was discovered to have contacted the deadly disease after a blood test.


Ondo Governor, Olusegun-Mimiko’s commissioner of health says the state is prepared to tackle lassa fever.

This was confirmed by Ondo state commissioner for health, Dayo Adeyanju, who assured that the state government had already taken necessary steps to prevent the spread of the disease.

He said, “It is expected, we have already said it, that is why we are proactive about it to  ensure that if anybody has symptom and sign of Lassa fever, we will be able to quickly detect and then curtail it.

“Also, there would be active surveillance, where we look around to see if anybody has been infected. Already contact tracing has begun on this one.”

The victim has since been transferred to Irrua Specialists’ Hospital for adequate treatment, the commissioner revealed.

Meanwhile, Redeemer’s University in Ede, Osun state has said it is close to finding a cure for the dreaded disease.


Lassa fever is carried by rats and the diseases has now spread to six states in Nigeria.

Punch quoted the Deputy Director of the university’s Africa Centre Of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases, Folarin Onikepe as saying that the institution is trying to understand why some people are not affected by the disease if exposed to it. This, she said, is key in the research.

She said, “That is one of the things we are working on to be able to identify vaccine candidates that can now be used to develop vaccine for Lassa fever.

“That is why our genomics study is looking at the susceptibility and otherwise of some people to the virus. We know that some people are exposed to the virus and they don’t fall sick while others fall sick.

“One of our studies is to know what makes them different. What are their genomic features like? Once we identify all of these, they will be used together with other materials as vaccine. We hope to identity more than one and that is why we call them candidates.

“I can say we have gone far on the development of the vaccine but we still have a lot to  do before we can say we very are close to it. So far, we have been able to identify some but we are looking at their potency and soon we will come up with the vaccine and this will stop the number of deaths recorded yearly due to Lassa fever virus.”

With the Ondo cum Edo detection, the six states that have confirmed Lassa fever cases in the last two weeks are:

1. Plateau

2. Rivers

3. Bauchi

4. Gombe

5. Ondo

6. Edo

Are you worried? Know more about Lassa fever in Nigeria In one year SEE how many people Lassa fever has killed in Nigeria