The recent outbreak of meningitis in the Northern part of Nigeria might not be seeing the end as soon as possible as the Federal Government has said the type of meningitis currently ravaging some parts of the country is strange, adding that the country does not have a vaccine for it.
The government also said there was a limited amount of doses of vaccines for meningitis ‘C’ globally.
The Chief Executive Officer/National Coordinator, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, made this known to the Senate Committee on Primary Health and Communicable Diseases, in Abuja, on Monday.
Also, the Acting Director General, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Emmanuel Odu, said the country needed about $1.1bn for the vaccination of 22 million persons in the five states affected by the Type ‘C’ cerebrospinal meningitis.
He announced that each vaccine cost between $30 and $50, stating that the vaccine was expensive and scarce.
Ihekweazu, in his presentation, disclosed that the outbreak started in the second week of December 2016 ‘and has been increasing since then’.
Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
