Outbreak of lassa fever in Nigeria: measures for prevention and control

Lassa fever, an acute viral haemorrhagic fever, extremely virulent and often infectious, occurs very frequently in different parts of Nigeria [1–4] and affects approximately 100,000-500,000 persons per year in West Africa [5, 6]. The illness was discovered in Lassa, Borno State where it was first reported. It is caused by the Lassa fever virus, a single stranded RNA virus belonging to the arenaviridae family [7, 8]