From Olanrewaju Lawal,Birnin Kebbi
The Medecins Sans Frontieres(MSF) known as Doctors Without Borders has disclosed that about 1,531 patients were handled by their team within five weeks they kicked off their response actions to the outbreak of the meningitis in Kebbi state.
Dr. Sham’un Abubakar, a Mobile Emergency Coordinator, Kebbi Meningitis Outbreak disclosed this while briefing newsmen in Birnin Kebbi on their cases management since they arrived the state on the 10th March,2025.
Abubakar who explained that the disease is deadly communicable disease, noted that the bacteria usually trigger during the hot weather especially in the most of the Northern states.
“When the human being infected, the bacteria goes to the brain and to the spinach cord and the human being become unconscious. They can have fever, they can have convulsion. What we are doing now is to stop the spread of the disease from one person to another. Because it is communicable and we are trying to stop this and managing people who were sicked as well vaccinate them wherever is necessary.
“What we have been doing now is that we have opened clinic center, isolation center in three General hospitals in the three Local Government Areas. The first is in Jega LGA General hospital and as of today we have moved to one PHC where we decentralize our cares. In Aliero General Hospital, we have moved to one PHC. In Gwandu LGA, we have moved to one General Hospitals.
“Now we have staffs which we recruited and there are staffs of the General Hospitals who come from the Ministry of health, whom we give incentive too. We motivate them and we have been around since 10th March till now. During this period with one company, we are preventing the general public from contracting the disease with mass vaccination.
“As of 20th April which is about five weeks we started this response, we have managed 1,531 cases in these hospitals. But there might be other cases which are being managing in government hospitals which we didn’t come to us because the cases reported in the state as of 20th April are 1,700 plus and out of these we managed 1,531 cases in different LGAs.
“Most of the cases, from Gwandu which about 780 plus, Aliero 490 and in Jega the remaining number of cases. In term of the mortality, it is within the acceptable rank because it is deadly disease and number of people would die if there is no preventing treatment. So, usually when you have this kind of disease, we try to reduce the mortality rate to acceptable level. The number of people who died from the number of cases recorded was seven percentage and in most LGA, it is about five percentage.
Abubakar said that they have already targeted about 500,000 populace with massive vaccination which they have exhausted.
He disclosed that they are planning to embark of the massive vaccination of children from ageas of 1-5 years with integration of the measles vaccination which could immuned their body system for five to seven years in some people.
“We are integrated it with measles and we are going to vaccinated children that are between 1-5 years old. Currently, there are outbreak of the measles and in those LGA, we are vaccinated the children. We are collaborating with the Ministry of Health which are on the routine vaccination so that we can ensure we have mass vaccination of children and prevented them from the outbreak of the disease”.