Yellow fever surveillance activities
The CPC houses both the national laboratory for Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome and Principe, and the Regional Reference Laboratory (RRL) for yellow fever for 10 countries in the WHO African Region. In its role as RRL, it provides training, technical support, quality control and quality assurance activities to the various laboratories. As a National Laboratory, it analyzes suspect samples from countries using different techniques from the WHO-validated diagnostic algorithm. In 2023, 1970 serum/plasma samples from patients suspected of having YF were tested at the CPC for YF IgM. 42 were positive and 51 equivocal. All YF IgM positive and equivocal samples were also tested for cross-reactive antibodies to dengue (DEN), West Nile (WN), Zika (ZIK) and Chikungunya (CHIK).
Anual report
During 2017, activity remained stable. 3,149 samples were received at the laboratory (including 3,121 from Cameroon (EAC) and 28 from Equatorial Guinea (EQG)). Analysis was performed on 2,230 samples due to a WHO reagent shortage. The results identified 18 yellow fever IgM positive cases (0.58%) and 3 indeterminate cases (0.09%) from the EAC.The distribution of cases by region shows that, although the Littoral and Central regions recorded the highest number of suspected cases, all positive cases (18) originated from the Littoral region. As in 2016, a relatively high number of suspected cases was also noted in the three regions of the North, Southwest, and Far North. Since July 2012, when differential diagnosis was implemented, all cases with positive yellow fever IgM have been tested for IgM antibodies to dengue virus and West Nile virus. In 2017, 3 out of 21 cases werepositive for IgM antibodies to dengue virus and West Nile virus.
