The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday said Nigeria is currently suffering its worst outbreak of Lassa fever even as local health officials disclosed that at least 72 people had died from the disease since the beginning of the year.

The WHO said Lassa fever, named after the town in northern Nigeria where it was first identified in 1969, is endemic but added that the number of confirmed cases had never reached this level before.

In a statement released on Wednesday which quoted figures from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the WHO said the outbreak of the disease had reached a record high, with 317 laboratory-confirmed cases.

In an update, the NSDC said: “Since the onset of the year 2018, 352 cases have been classified as: 317 confirmed cases, eight probable cases with 72 deaths.”

On February 16, 31 persons including fourteen health workers were reported to have died from the disease which is caused by a virus of the same family as Marburg and Ebola.

The WHO added that a total of 2,845 people who have come into contact with infected patients have been identified and were being monitored.

Worst-hit by the virus is Edo State where Crusoe Osagie, a media aide to the state government said rural areas were mostly affected. Osagie added that a state-owned Specialist Teaching Hospital located at Irrua had already handled about a hundred Lassa fever cases in the last two months.

Lassa fever is spread through contact with food or items contaminated with rats’ urine or faeces or after coming into direct contact with the body fluids of an infected person.