Meningitis: Sultan, Governors, Health Commissioners Meet Today

By Jide Afolabi, Jos

The Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar III, will today, hold meeting with the 19 Northern state Governors, Commissioners of Health and other health officials from the north in Kaduna, Kaduna state, to find solutions to meningitis outbreak ravaging the country especially, the northern part of the country.

This was disclosed yesterday by the Plateau state Commissioner of Health, Hon. Kuden Kamshak, at a press briefing to mark the World Health Day in Jos, Plateau state. The World Health Day is usually celebrated around the world every April 7.

Nigeria has been hit by outbreak of Cerebrospinal meningitis, CSM and has affected the 19 northern states with about 3,959 suspected cases reported and 438 deaths recorded as at April 5.

Northern states of Zamfara, Katsina and Sokoto were the worst hit by the epidemic, recording about 93 percent of the reported cases. Zamfara alone has 1,846 suspected cases with 216 deaths.

Last Thursday, the Federal government started a mass vaccination campaign in the eight worst hit local government areas with an initial target of 300, 000 persons aged 2-29 years witnessed huge turnout.

Meanwhile, because of peculiar status of Zamfara state, extra 120,000 doses of vaccine were supplied to the state to combat the scourge.

Kamshak confirmed that three cases of meningitis had been reported in the state. “Currently, there is only 500 million vaccines for meningitis, which is grossly inadequate. We need more than that number as a country, the Minister of Health has applied for the importation of the vaccines”, he said.