Re-emerging Lassa fever outbreaks in Nigeria: Re-enforcing “One Health” community surveillance and emergency response practice

Abstract

We evaluated the impact of man-made conflict events and climate change impact in guiding evidence-based community “One Health” epidemiology and emergency response practice against re-/emerging epidemics. Increasing evidence of emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases including recent Lassa fever outbreaks in almost 20 states in Nigeria led to 101 deaths and 175 suspected and confirmed cases since August 2015. Of the 75 laboratory confirmed cases, 90 deaths occurred representing 120% laboratory-confirmed case fatality. The outbreak has been imported into neighbouring country such as Benin, where 23 deaths out of 68 cases has also been reported. This study assesses the current trends in re-emerging Lassa fever outbreak in understanding spatio-geographical reservoir(s), risk factors pattern and Lassa virus incidence mapping, inherent gaps and raising challenges in health systems. It is shown that Lassa fever peak endemicity incidence and prevalence overlap the dry season (within January to March) and reduced during the wet season (of May to November) annually in Sierra Leone, Senegal to Eastern Nigeria. We documented a scarcity of consistent data on rodent (reservoirs)-linked Lassa fever outbreak, weak culturally and socio-behavioural effective prevention and control measures integration, weak or limited community knowledge and awareness to inadequate preparedness capacity and access to affordable case management in affected countries. Hence, robust sub/regional leadership commitment and investment in Lassa fever is urgently needed in building integrated and effective community “One Health” surveillance and rapid response approach practice coupled with pest management and phytosanitation measures against Lassa fever epidemic. This offers new opportunities in understanding human-animal interactions in strengthening Lassa fever outbreak early detection and surveillance, warning alerts and rapid response implementation in vulnerable settings. Leveraging on Africa CDC centre, advances in cloud-sourcing and social media tools and solutions is core in developing and integrating evidence-based and timely risk communication, and reporting systems in improving contextual community-based immunization and control decision making policy to effectively defeat Lassa fever outbreak and other emerging pandemics public health emergencies in Africa and worldwide.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40249-018-0421-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Diagnostics for Lassa fever virus: a genetically diverse pathogen found in low-resource settings

“…Early detection is critical for LASV containment, and a strong surveillance system is necessary to support interventions in endemic or ‘hot spot’ areas for LASV and other VHF 53 54. WHO and partners support national authorities in affected countries for outbreak preparedness and emergency response once an outbreak has been detected,55 as shown in recent outbreaks in Nigeria 56–60…”

Infectious or Recovered? Optimizing the Infectious Disease Detection Process for Epidemic Control and Prevention Based on Social Media

“…Along with the widespread use of the Internet, social networking data, including web-based epidemiological data, have had explosive growth. Data from social networks show apparent advantages in several respects, such as being real-time and having time-sharing, along with a broad scope of data coverage [ 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. In terms of the scale of users, Sina Weibo’s monthly active users reached 431 million on 30 June 2018, overtaking Twitter, which makes Sina Weibo the world’s largest independent social media platform [ 67 ].…”

“…Data from social networks show apparent advantages in several aspects, such as being real time and time-sharing, along with a broad scope of data coverage [ 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. Disease surveillance has been investigated based on the recent rise in the popularity and scale of social media data.…”

Plague Epizootic Dynamics in Chipmunk Fleas, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, USA, 2013–2015

“…Her research interests focus on behavioral ecology, ecophysiology, disease ecology, and conservation. B rucellosis can be transmitted between domestic animals and wildlife (1). Brucella melitensis has been isolated from wildlife, such as chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra) (2), Alpine ibex (Capra ibex) (3), and Iberian wild goat (Capra pyrenaica) (4).…”

“…The rate of infection of vector species can serve as a good indicator for risk during epizootic events, especially in areas with high human-wildlife overlap, but vectors are often poorly sampled. Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, is carried by multiple flea species in western North America, where sciurids are often the primary reservoirs (1). Although human plague cases in this area are rare, in 2015, two cases were linked to exposures in Yosemite National Park, California, USA (2).…”