The World Health Organization in its recent report has clearly mentioned that around 160 million people are at threat of catching ‘Yellow Fever’ in Nigeria. The African nation has a population of over 200 million.
The above said data covers around 25% at risk of the disease. Nigeria is susceptible to both urban and jungle population, which increases the risk of infection.The main cause behind the yellow fever is infected mosquitoes.
According to WHO reports, ‘Sylvatic exposure is spread of yellow fever from infected mosquitoes that have either bitten non-human primates and animals.’
The agricultural and mining workers are at more risk of catching the infection.
Meanwhile, WHO Nigeria Medical Officer, Dr Anne Eudes Jean Baptiste has explained that, ‘Yellow fever is dangerous because a small number of patients will pass through a more toxic phase of the infection. By then they will likely to experience fever, and have system failure, especially in the kidney and liver.’ Baptiste added that because of the disease, bleeding from the mouth, nose, as well as eyes may occur, and within 7 to 10 days, half of the patients will lose their lives.
As per reports released by WHO, yellow fever has made a comeback after almost 15 years in 2017. The cyclical nature of sylvatic transmission as well as shortfalls in illness diagnosis rather than a lack of the virus transmission are to blame for this. The WHO further mentioned that a better idea of the spread of the infection is possible due to improved surveillance and laboratory testing.
At the same time, Nigeria Center for Disease Control’s Director General, Dr Ifedayo M.O Adetifa said that they have empowered surveillance considerably. ‘We have reference labs in the nation that have been empowered and are being favoured and assessed to make sure they are meeting all the performance parameters in terms of sample collection and referral to our reference laboratories in Abuja.’
Despite the spread of coronavirus, the Director-General has further revealed that they almost distributed 66 million doses in 2020-2021 to curb the spread of yellow fever in humans.
