Date: 2018-01-10

A Yellow Fever outbreak has killed nine people, a report has said.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, in its situation report on Yellow Fever, released for the first epidemiological week in 2018, said the ailment has been confirmed in 12 councils across seven states.

The states are Kwara, Kano, Niger, Nasarawa, Kebbi, Kogi and Zamfara.

The current outbreak started in Ifelodun Local Government Area of Kwara State, with the first case detected in a seven-year-old girl in September 2017.

The girl had no history of yellow fever vaccination. She also had no travel history outside her state two years before the illness.

Since that incident, 16 states-- Abia, Borno, Kogi, Kwara, Kebbi, Plateau, Zamfara, Enugu, Oyo, Anambra, Edo, Lagos, Kano, Nasarawa, Katsina and Niger-- have reported suspected cases.

According to NCDC, as at January 2, a total of 358 suspected cases had been line-listed out of which 230 blood samples collected and sent to the laboratory for confirmation.

The agency said out of the samples collected and tested in five different Nigerian laboratories, 63 tested positive and one was inconclusive.

The same 64 samples were then sent to WHO laboratory.