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•Urgent vaccination efforts underway suspected cases hit 11,000
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The Federal Ministry of Health & Social Welfare (FMOH&SW) has indicated that no fewer than 453 people have died as result of diphtheria as at September 24, 2023.
Executive Director of National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, who made the disclosure said the government was aware of the mounting concern regarding the recent Diphtheria outbreak across several states with over 11,000 suspected cases and assured that urgent vaccination efforts were underway.
Shuaib said since the confirmation of the re-emergence of diphtheria, the Federal Government had continued to respond to the outbreaks across different states.
According to him, as at September 24, there were 11,587 reported suspected cases, of which 7,202 were confirmed from 105 local government areas in 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
States with confirmed cases include Kano (6,185), Yobe (640), Katsina (213), Borno (95), Kaduna (16), Jigawa (14), Bauchi (8), Lagos (8), FCT (5), Gombe (5), Osun (3), Sokoto (3), Niger (2), Cross River (1), Enugu (1), Imo (1), Nasarawa (1) and Zamfara (1).
It was, however, confirmed that the majority (5,299) of the confirmed cases occurred among children aged 1–14 years with those aged 5-14 years bearing most of the brunt of the disease.
The Federal ministry of health explained that Diphtheria, caused by a toxin produced by the bacteria Corynebacterium diphtheriae, is a vaccine-preventable disease covered by one of the vaccines provided routinely through Nigeria’s childhood immunization schedule.
It added that a historical gap in vaccination coverage is the major driver of the outbreak given the most affected age group and results of the nationwide diphtheria immunity survey that showed that only 42 per cent of children under 15 years old are fully protected from diphtheria.
Minister of Health, Prof. Ali Pate, in a statement, said a national emergency task team co-chaired by Shuaib, and the Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, has been set up for a higher level coordination of outbreak response efforts.
He said the task team will be responsible for the overall coordination of all activities encompassing government and development partners’ response activities at national and sub-national levels, as well as implementation of an Incident Management System (IMS) through the activation of a National Diphtheria Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) at NCDC.
