Nigeria: Measles, CSM Hit 10 Northern States

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Source: http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=107987

Measles, CSM Hit 10 Northern States
?Claim 400 lives in 3 months
04.07.2008


A wave of measles and Cerebro-Spinal Meningitis (CSM) is sweeping through some states in the northern part of the country.
At the last count, the deadly diseases have claimed 400 lives in the affected states.
A survey by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) has shown that the states include Kaduna, Gombe, Kano, Yobe, Adamawa, Kebbi, Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Bauchi.
Yobe State recorded the highest number of casualties with 190 deaths within the period under review while Katsina State recorded 165 deaths. Sokoto State recorded 43 while Kwara lost 16 persons. Bauchi recorded 9 deaths..
In Yobe, 2,482 cases of measles were recorded, with 190 deaths between Janauary and March this year.
In Katsina State, the state's Disease Control Unit recorded 3,064 cases of measles and 165 deaths in the last three months, the unit's Director, Dr Halliru Idris, said. In Sokoto State, measles and meningitis claimed 43 lives, with 22 of the deaths recorded in four local government areas of the state in the last one week.
In Kwara, a measles outbreak claimed the lives of two children while a local government bought drugs worth N1 million to deal with the situation. The CSM outbreak in Tambawal Local Government claimed 16 lives.
The Director, Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Musa Dambam, told NAN that the children died as a result of the outbreak of measles in 10 local government areas of the state between January and March this year.
He said that more than 500 children who were infected were treated in health institutions across the state.
``As part of measures to curtail the spread of the epidemic, the state government had provided free treatment and vaccination for both infected and non-infected children between the ages of six months and five years.
``More than 200,000 children have been immunised against the disease across the 20 local government areas of the state, the state government provided about 219,000 doses of measles vaccines for the exercise".``The immunisation targeted childrenbetween the age of six months and two years,'' he said.
In Kaduna State, incidences of measles have been recorded in seven local government areas, according to the Chairman of the state's Action Committee on Immunisation, Alhaji Mustapha Jumare. Areas affected, he added, include Zaria, Igabi, Giwa, Ikara, Kubau, Birnin-Gwari and Kaduna South.
He attributed the outbreak of the disease to insufficient vaccines and the attitude of some parents toward immunisation exercise.
``This can also be attributed to insufficent laboratory equipment, which delayed analysis of the samples because sometimes results take time before it comes out".``Only 16 cases of the disease and two deaths were recorded in Zaria Local Government Area between May last year and March this year.
However, the situation is different in Kano State, which recorded low level of meningitis and measles, in spite of the hottemperature between January and March.
Meanwhile, the NYSC Camp Director in Bauchi State, Mr Gregory Osuorgi, said the 984 corps members posted to the state have been vaccinated against CSM, adding that the innoculation was aimed at protecting the corps members.

The state's Epidemiologist, Dr MahmoudNasir, told NAN that the EpidemiologyDepartment had recorded 57 cases ofmeningitis across the state, with only twodeaths due to delayed diagnosis of thepatients.

 

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Re: Nigeria: Measles, CSM Hit 10 Northern States

Source: http://allafrica.com/stories/200804150688.html

Nigeria: Fresh Wave of Measles and CSM Attack

This Day (Lagos)

14 April 2008
Posted to the web 15 April 2008

Lagos

The recent gale of measles and cerebro-spinal meningitis (CSM) attacks in some northern states has once again exposed the fragility of our primary health care delivery system.

t was reported that between January and March, no fewer than 410 infants have died out of the more than 10, 000 reported cases of the two infectious diseases in Yobe, Katsina, Sokoto, Kwara, Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna, Kebbi, and Zamfara states.

According to the reports, the distribution of the fatalities puts Yobe on the lead with 190 deaths, followed by Katsina, which recorded 165 deaths. Forty-three deaths were recorded in Sokoto while Kwara and Bauchi recorded 16 and nine deaths respectively.

To be sure, the figure could be higher as this only represents the number of those that died in hospitals. Many more cases of the diseases were obviously not reported to health authorities as a number of people have still refused to embrace the hospital culture.

Whatever is the case, this is a worrisome development and very scary indeed as it is one of the worst measles and CSM outbreaks in the country in recent years.

It is worrisome that diseases that are supposed to have been eliminated long ago keep recurring in the country with its attendant toll on human lives.

Reason for this ugly scenario could be located in official negligence as well as some people's non-chalance to issues of personal hygiene and sanitation.

It is a sad commentary on our healthcare delivery that since the end of the tenure of the late Professor Olikoye Ransome-Kuti as Minister of Health, the country is yet to witness any serious attempt to tackle preventable diseases. The late renowned paediatrician took the nation's health sector by storm between 1985 and 1989 with his Oral Re-hydration Therapy (ORT) that became the ultimate nemesis of the deadly disease of diarrhoea in both infants and adults among other primary healthcare initiatives. Successive health policies since then have however, proved to be conduit pipes through which huge budgetary allocations for the sector and even billions of dollars of foreign donor agencies' grants are siphoned to private pockets at the expense of the lives of the people.

It is our contention that a little more commitment to the welfare of the people by policy makers could have staved off some of the deaths arising from these preventable diseases. For instance, measles outbreak could simply have been averted through simple vaccination. But although vaccines are said to be in abundance, some officials somewhere would simply refuse to administer these essential vaccines on those susceptible to the disease. Often times, those vaccines are either locked up in some God-forsaken government stores or found their ways to private drug shops.

And curiously, these same officials would often wake up to their responsibilities only after the damage might have been done. Or how do we explain the sudden realization by officials in those states that recently suffered measles and CSM attacks, that children need free vaccination after hundreds of innocent lives had been lost?

Also worthy of note is the campaign sometime ago by some Muslim clerics in the North for the boycott of infant vaccination on the rather mischievous and unscientific ground that immunization was a western ploy to render Muslim girls infertile. Though the dispute has since been resolved, some parents still refuse to take their children for immunization. The fact that these diseases are endemic in the North tends to lend credence to the fact that failure to vaccinate rather than failure of the vaccines is at the root of measles outbreak. And studies have shown that over 90 per cent of all the children that have measles are those whose parents have disallowed to receive immunization

If future outbreaks of measles and CSM are to be prevented, there is an urgent need for government to embark on a policy reorientation that places more emphasis on primary healthcare delivery. Added to this is the need to step up preventive immunization campaigns to get more people to embrace measles and CSM vaccination. Also, the people need to be adequately educated on the need for hygienic living and good sanitation habit as a key to lock out some of these deadly diseases.