Conference Abstract | Volume 8, Abstract ELIC2025313 (Poster 103) | Published: 05 Aug 2025
Simiat Titilola Adeogun1,2,&, Oladayo David Awoyale1,, Ojielo Nwadiuto1,3, Charles Emenike Obi1,3
1Nigeria Malaria Modelling Fellowship, Abuja, nigeria, 2Osun State Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Osogbo, Osun State, Nigeria, 3Corona Management Systems, Celina Ayom Crescent, Kado, Abuja, Nigeria
&Corresponding author: Simiat Titilola Adeogun, Nigeria Malaria Modelling Fellowship, Abuja, Nigeria, Email: adeogunsimiat@gmail.com
Received: 31 May 2025, Accepted: 09 Jul 2025, Published: 05 Aug 2025
Domain: Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Keywords: Modelling, Lassa fever, Mass testing, asymptomatic, Edo State
©Simiat Titilola Adeogun et al. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health (ISSN: 2664-2824). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cite this article: Simiat Titilola Adeogun et al., Modelling the impact of asymptomatic populations on the effectiveness of mass testing on Lassa fever incidence in Edo State, Nigeria. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health. 2025;8(ConfProc5):00247. https://doi.org/10.37432/JIEPH-CONFPRO5-00247
Lassa Fever (LF) is an acute viral zoonotic disease of public health concern particularly in West Africa. Itis endemic in Nigeria with a case fatality ratio of 16.9%. Edo state is one of the country’s high-burden states, accounting for about 23% of total confirmed cases and 17 deaths as of September 2024. Symptoms of LF are generally non-specific and 80% of cases are either mild or asymptomatic leading to several missed/undetected cases, so this study aimed to evaluate the impact of this asymptomatic populations on effectiveness of mass testing on LF incidence in Edo State, Nigeria.
This was a cross-sectional analytical study. A modified SEIR deterministic compartmental model was used to develop and simulate the impact of mass testing on LF dynamics. The modification involved bifurcating the susceptible population into symptomatic and asymptomatic and including a testing compartment. Edo State LF incidence data from 2018-2024 were extracted from Nigeria Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC). Model parameters were derived through an exhaustive search strategy of existing relevant literature on LF transmission dynamics and testing rates. Data analysis was done using Microsoft Excel 365 for descriptive statistics while Basic reproduction number (R0) and sensitivity analysis was by Python and R version 4.4.2. The effects of the mass testing were simulated in three scenarios.
Total cases analysed were 6760, of which 1290 were positive. R0 of 7.56 was calculated. Scenario analysis revealed that mass testing of both symptomatic and asymptomatic populations provided the best results in controlling LF transmission. This was followed by testing the asymptomatic population only and then the symptomatic population only.
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