Diphtheria outbreak: Kano appeals for vaccines after 50 deaths

The Kano State Government has appealed to the Federal Government to supply additional diphtheria vaccines to enable it to conduct mass vaccination against the disease across the state.

The Director-General, Kano Centre for Disease Control, Prof Muhammad Abbas, requested while addressing a news conference on Tuesday night.

The press conference followed the reported outbreak of diphtheria in Rano and some other local government areas by the state House of Assembly, which said the disease had led to the death of more than 50 children.

“Kano State has even written to the Federal Government to get more and more vaccines so that we vaccinate our people,” the KNCDC DG said.

He, however, appealed to residents, particularly parents, to ensure early reporting of diphtheria and other cases to health facilities for prompt treatment.

“We are appealing to parents to please report early. Early presentation to healthcare facilities is what saves.

“And even if not medical conditions, all conditions, including social, if they are long and complicated, taking care of them is always difficult.

“So, please go to the healthcare facility near you. If the cases are epidemic-prone, they will alert us,” he said.

Prof Abbas, who expressed concern over the failure of some residents to report cases to health facilities, said there were 126 disease surveillance and notification officers deployed across the state’s 44 local government areas.

“So, it is really disheartening that we will have cases that are up to 50 that have not been reported to the hospital.

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“We want to appeal to people: come to the clinics, come to the hospital. If the hospitals feel these cases are greater than what they can handle, they will refer them to us, and we will do the needful,” he said.

He said the centre had been on top of the diphtheria situation since the inception of the present administration under Governor Abba Yusuf.

“I want to tell you that we had over 38,000 cases from 2022 till date, out of which over 31,000 cases were confirmed.

“But the disheartening thing is that more than 55 per cent of those are what we call zero-dose children who have not received any form of vaccination.

“More than 16 per cent of the cases and another 10 to 15 per cent of them were partially immunised. Only a few of them were fully immunised, which means we have a very big deal in our hands.

“As I am speaking to you now, my team is in Rano. They want to dig out. Sometimes, certain deaths may be due to other diseases.

“In that situation, we carry out what we call verbal autopsy. We interview the parents and see what happened, what led to the death of these children,” he concluded.

On Monday, the state House of Assembly called on the governor to urgently intervene in a diphtheria outbreak that had reportedly killed over 50 children in Rano LGA.

The call followed a motion of urgent public importance moved by the member representing Rano Constituency, Ibrahim Muhammad, during Monday’s plenary presided over by the Speaker, Ismail Falgore.