GENEVA, 05 December 2020, (TON): According to World Health Organisation (WHO) yellow fever outbreak in Nigeria has killed 172 people so far.

Nigeria has been battling successive yellow fever outbreaks since 2017. This latest outbreak was detected in November, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva.

"As of November 24, the outbreak has been reported in five states in Nigeria: Delta, Enugu, Bauchi, Benue and Ebonyi," he said.

"A total of 530 suspected cases have been reported, including 48 that have been confirmed by lab testing.

"A total of 172 deaths have been reported out of those 530 suspected cases."

He said sample testing was ongoing through national reference laboratories.

Capacity has been increased in certain hospitals to help manage patients who develop yellow fever symptoms and complications.

Currently, Nigeria's 16 of 36 states and the federal capital territory have completed vaccination campaigns.

Six more are expected to do so in the first quarter of 2021, with a further six set to do so by the end of next year, bringing the total to 28, the WHO said.

The percentage of people immunised against yellow fever remains low in many parts of Africa, even though the vaccine is nearly 100 per cent effective and relatively cheap.

There is no specific treatment for yellow fever, which is largely transmitted in urban settings by mosquitoes.

Nigeria is facing several concurrent public health emergencies, including circulating Vaccine Derived Polio Virus (cVDPV), measles, monkeypox, Lassa fever and cholera outbreaks as well as humanitarian crisis in the northeast of the country.

At present, the Yellow Fever outbreaks are considered high risk at national level, low at regional and global levels.