Contact tracing is an important strategy employed in surveillance to aid prompt detection of infectious disease and control outbreaks. It involves the identification of those who have come in contact with an infectious person and following them up for the duration of the incubation period of the disease to promptly detect symptoms and signs and institute treatment thus reducing chances of disease spread to other susceptible individuals. It is a primary means of disease prevention. The importance of cooperation from contacts being traced cannot be overemphasized as they are required to promptly report symptoms, avoid gatherings and travelling until they are cleared by the surveillance team. The follow-up should also link contacts who become symptomatic to designated care centers. In 2014, during the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria, the disease spread from Lagos to another State in the country by a contact who travelled out of Lagos to Rivers state. To identify risk factors among contacts of Lassa fever cases which can predispose to disease spread and institute control measures, we interviewed primary contacts of Lassa fever cases during an outbreak response in Kogi State Nigeria, 2016.
Objective: To identify risk factors among contacts of Lassa fever cases which can predispose to disease spread and institute control measures.