Health officials: Lassa fever kills 21 in Nigeria

Nigeria Centre for Disease Control

Twenty-one people have died from Lassa fever in Nigeria this month, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said.

This is in the latest outbreak in Africa's most populous nation. "Since the beginning of 2018, 80 cases have been classified as 77 confirmed cases, three probable cases with 21 deaths," the NCDC said on Twitter.

Cases have been reported in 13 of 36 states while 10 health care workers had been affected, it added.

 Lassa fever belongs to the same family as Marburg and Ebola, two deadly viruses that lead to infections with fever, vomiting, and in worst-case scenarios, haemorrhagic bleeding.

Its name comes from the town of Lassa in northern Nigeria where it was first identified in 1969. More than 100 people were killed in 2016 in one of the nation's worst outbreaks of the disease, affecting 14 of the 36 states, including Lagos and the capital, Abuja.