UNICEF Donates 850,000 Doses of Meningitis Vaccines to Sokoto State
By Alex Uangbaoje, Sokoto
Worried about increasing number of people dying as a result of Meningitis type C outbreak in some parts of Nigeria, United Nations Children’s Fund ( UNICEF) on Monday said the organisation is delivering about 850,000 doses of meningitis vaccines to Sokoto State Government to help curtail the outbreak.
Mohammad Mohiuddin, UNICEF Sokoto Chief of Field Office, disclosed this in his office when he played host to a team of Journalists.
According to him, UNICEF has already delivered about 100,000 doses of the vaccine to the state government.
“Approximately,100,000 has already been handed over to the government, tomorrow we are expecting to receive 50,000 plus doses of the vaccines, a day after tomorrow we are also going to receive 600,000 plus excess. About 850,000 will be provided to the state government at the end of day.
“We are also supporting the state government in social mobilisation campaigns, and as part of that, we are doing social mobilisation through our field network.
“We have the Community Volunteers mobilizers at the community level, we have the LGAs consultants and we have our whole network of Communication for Mobilization.” He said.
Mohiuddin, commended the state government for her efforts, adding “the Commissioner of Health is very hard working and committed and all his team are taking the outbreak very seriously.”
Confirming the first batch of receipt of the vaccines from UNICEF, Incidence Manager, Emergency Operations Center, Sokoto, Dr. Aminu Shehu, noted that over 97,200 doses of the vaccines are already in the custody of the state government.
He explained that, since the outbreak of the bacteria, the state has responded well, in collaboration with other partners like UNICEF, by providing drugs for patients.
“We have a state of the art laboratory where cases are analysed and treatments are promptly administered. Many at times even before the confirmation once the symptoms are there we commence treatment.
“We have Different teams on ground working together to tackle the menace and these includes surveillance, mobilization, vaccines and we get reports and feedback through the ministry of health.
“Currently, we have 33 confirmed cases in the state, which have been treated and discharged. But apart from these there are over 1000 suspected cases.
“The situation is that when someone is down with fever and neck pain, they immediately rush to the Center to say that they have Meningitis and you cannot say you will not treat them until the test results are out.” He said
He however, revealed that vaccination exercise and campaigns will commence on Thursday 27th April 2017 in 9 Local Government Areas.
