The World Health Organisation is scaling up efforts to contain a rapidly growing Lassa fever outbreak in West Africa. This is already almost half of the total cases for all of last year when Nigeria experienced its worst outbreak of Lassa fever. While the cases are occurring during the Lassa fever season, WHO is alarmed at the 'speed of escalation'. Lassa fever is caused by a haemorrhagic virus which belongs to the same family as Marburg and Ebola. More than 80 per cent of Lassa fever cases are rodent-to-human transmissions.

Source: The Star February 16, 2019 07:41 UTC