Patterns of Lassa Fever Mortality in Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Edo State.

ABSTRACTLassa fever is a viral haemorrhagic fever with non-specific symptoms that has shown an upwardtrend in Nigeria and other West African countries, which is depicted by high incidence and casefatality in recent years. There are different reports on the yearly case burden of Lassa fever fromthe Federal Ministry of Health in Nigeria, through the regulatory body Nigeria Centre forDisease Control (NCDC). This study assess the patterns of Lassa fever mortality in Irruaspecialist teaching hospital, Irrua, Edo state from 2016-2020. The study employed a non-experimental research design. Purposive sampling techniques were used to select a sample sizeof 333 from the target population. Data were collected using the checklist developed by theresearcher for the purpose of this study. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and theresult presented in frequency tables and charts. Findings from the study revealed mean age of LFpatients was (31.2+10.9) and cases were mainly of the younger age group. Also, from thefindings pattern of occurrence of cases revealed more cases were during the earlier parts of theyears but from 2018 to 2020, cases were recorded almost throughout the year. The distributionand spread of Lassa fever infection shown there is increasing trend in incident cases from 5 in2016 to 126 in 2020. The study revealed mortality rate decreased from 29.6% in 2017 to 12.9%in 2020 but no mortality rate recorded for 2016. The study concluded that the incidence of Lassafever showed an increasing pattern while that of mortality was on a downward trend. Moreefforts should be put in place by the State government and other stakeholders to reduce theburden of this disease.Keywords: Lassa Fever, Patterns, Mortality, Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Edo State.Word count: 249