By Maduabuchi Nmeribeh/Kano
The Executive Director of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHDA), Dr. Faisal Shu’aib on Wednesday in Kano revealed that Nigeria has so far recorded over diphtheria outbreak, with five states in the worse hit by the disease.
Dr. Shu”aib was in Kano to assess the level of response for the control of the outbreak in the state.
According to him, “we are visiting Kano state to assess the level of the response, as you may be aware Kano state is among the states where Diphtheria Outbreak. What we are seeing now the state is doing well for making sure the outbreak is brought under control.”
He said out of the number of cases five states which includes Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Borno and Yobe are the responsible for over 97 percent of the cases.
He further stated that, “we are conducting active case search, that’s going to communities, educating Nigerians about the symptoms and sign of Diphtheria, also we are doing a contact tracing, the more we do this contact tracing we are seeing additional cases even were in local government were we are not seen cases yet, we are asking a question about the disease. So that we don’t have a situation where optimum surveillance give us confidence there are reducing the Diphtheria cases.”
Dr. Shu’aib added federal government is working with partners to make sure any response is require to bring this outbreak quickly under control.
He commended President Bola Ahmad Tinibu for providing all necessary support to fight the disease.
He also commended Kano state government for the control of the outbreak with hoping that in the next few weeks, the disease would have become history in Nigeria.
Dr. Shu’aib, however, called on people to always bring their children for immunization in order to protect them from the disease.
“We are seeing this crisis as an opportunity to strengthen the health system,we can’t allow this kind of crisis to continue. The principal lesson here is we need to have strong routine immunization system. Parents need to take their children for vacation. Over 80 percent of the cases that admitted have never vaccinated because the highest number of cases that have died died from the outbreak are those between the age of 5 to 14 years,” he stated.