Meningitis: NCDC confirms 282 deaths in five states

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has confirmed the outbreak of Cerebro Spinal Meningitis (CSM) in five states with 282 deaths.

Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, the Chief Executive Officer of the centre, made this known on Thursday in Abuja.

Ihekweazu said that 1,966 suspected cases have been recorded while 109 have been confirmed since the outbreak of the disease in February in the country.

He said that the centre had deployed a response team to the affected states to vaccinate the residents and control further spread of CSM.

According to him, Zamfara has the highest number of confirmed cases of 44, followed by Katsina with 32, Sokoto 19, Kebbi 10 and Niger 4 confirmed cases.

He also said that there is an inter-agency response supporting the states to contain the outbreak through the primary mode of vaccination.

However, Ihekweazu explained that a new strand of meningitis called “stereotype C” has emerged in place of the previous known type “stereotype A”, which has disappeared.

He regretted that there was not yet commercially available vaccine for this new stereotype “C” meningitis.

The Nation, March 30, 2017

 

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