NIGERIA—Nigeria Center for Disease Control & Prevention (NCDC) has partnered with Johns Hopkins Program for International Education in Gynaecology to develop a Lassa Fever research agenda.
The partnership also includes other reputable institutions like the University College of London, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The partnership was agreed upon during a two-day colloquium on how to carry out research on Lassa Fever in Nigeria.
The research colloquium was aimed at reviewing the current situation on Lassa Fever and identifying important priorities that will expand the understanding of Lassa Fever transmission in West Africa.
Director General of the NCDC, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa said, “identifying means of strengthening surveillance, improve forecasting, position us for vaccine trials, and provide travel along the therapeutics development pathway all as part of the development of a 5-year Lassa fever research agenda.”
Adetifa explained that the new 5-year research path created by the colloquium would be essential to share new ideas as well, as research findings and best practices to control the spread of Lassa fever.
The epidemiology studies of disease including case management, molecular studies, and disease modelling have been largely neglected by international institutions according to a report released in 2019 by Médecins Sans Frontières.
Nigeria is currently experiencing an outbreak of Lassa Fever with the latest data from Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency (BSPHCDA), showing that 22 people have been killed by Lassa fever and a total of 978 cases had been confirmed in the state within the first 12 weeks of 2023.
As of April 2023, WHO has reported 4702 suspected cases, five probable cases, and 877 confirmed cases between epidemiological weeks 1 and 15 of 2023 (week ending 16 April) with 152 deaths being confirmed.
The research coalition will be a multi-disciplinary effort aimed at bringing experts from various fields to share insights on the disease.
Lassa fever is a viral-hemorrhagic fever and is mainly transmitted to humans by blood, urine, or fecal mater from multimammate rats.
The first case of Lassa Fever in Nigeria was reported in Borno State in 1969 and ever since the disease has become endemic in Nigeria and its West African counterparts.
With 80% of cases according to WHO, being asymptomatic or mild and the manifesting symptoms being varied making diagnosis rather difficult and requiring a laboratory confirmatory test.
In March of 2018, Nigeria reported its worst outbreak of Lassa and several local and international teams intervened to control the outbreak.
Chief among them was Médecins Sans Frontières teams to the twenty-three states that had reported cases of the disease.
The colloquium is part of the ongoing NCDC efforts since 2016 to understand the disease and control its spread.
The NCDC is currently coordinating its efforts with seven laboratories spread out in the country to monitor and report cases of the disease.
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