The Acute febrile illness surveillance project continued with its activities in the two health facilities: Redemption hospital and Star of the Sea health center. The AFI surveillance project successfully expanded patient enrolment and specimen collection in two additional health facilities in Nimba county, namely, Ganta United Methodist hospital and the George W. Harley hospital. A total of 792 patients were enrolled, with specimens collected for testing using the TaqMan Array Card qRT PCR platform. Of the 792 specimen collected, 449 (57%) were tested; pathogen detected included; 93 (21%) pan plasmodium which subtyped as 91 (98%) p. falciparum and 2 (2%) p. malaria, 4 (4%) Dengue, 3 (3%) Measles, 2(2%) Rickettsia, 1 (1%) Lassa virus and 1 (1%) Mycobacterium Tuberculosis.
Of the total 792 patients enrolled, 288 (36%) consented to SARS-CoV-2 testing, out of which 25 (9%) were positive by PCR, 18 reactive to SARS-CoV-2 IgM and 110 SARS-CoV-2 IgG reactive, which were within the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results from the SARS-CoV-2 testing were submitted to the Incident Management System for patient follow-up and management.
The AFI project continued to provide technical support and advice to the National Reference Laboratory concerning the SARS-CoV-2 testing platforms with new assays and management of the qRT PCR machines.
