Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Pate, has declared Northern Nigeria, particularly Jigawa, Bauchi and Yobe states as worse hit by the deadly outbreak of meningitis.
Pate disclosed this on Friday in a World Health Organization WHO statement released on Abuja on Friday.
The statement was a report on Nigeria’s effort at tackling meningitis through the production of vaccines.
WHO said Nigeria was the first country in the world to roll out a new vaccine – Men5CV it recommended to protect people against meningitis.
Professor Pate disclosed that “This vaccine provides health workers with a new tool to both stop this outbreak and also put the country on a path to elimination,” Pate said.
According to him, Nigeria has done a lot of work preparing health workers and the health system for the rollout of the new vaccine.
“We got an invaluable support from our populations in spite of the fasting period, and from our community leaders, especially the Emir of Gumel in Jigawa, who personally launched the vaccination campaign in the state.
“We’ll be monitoring progress closely and hopefully expand the immunisation in the coming months and years to accelerate progress,” he said.
The minister said that the new multivalent conjugate vaccine took 13 years of efforts and was based on a partnership between PATH and the Serum Institute of India.
“Financing from the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was critical to its development,” he said.
