Ms. Cristian Munduate, UNICEF’s representative in Nigeria, bemoaned the fact that just 22% of children in the states impacted by diphtheria had gotten their recommended childhood vaccinations.continue reading
Cristian stressed the urgent need to reach youngsters who had missed their vaccinations due to the COVID-19 shutdown in a statement made accessible to newsmen today.
“During the COVID-19 lockdown, many youngsters did not obtain their vaccinations. We must now quickly catch up. The majority of our worries are for these ‘zero-dose’ kids, or kids who haven’t had even one dose of vaccination, she said.
She noted that the disease tragically claimed 122 lives, with a case fatality rate (CFR) of 8.7%, and that the majority of confirmed cases—roughly 71.5 percent—had affected children between the ages of 2 and 14 years old, primarily in the states of Kano, Yobe, Katsina, Lagos, Sokoto, Zamfara, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which account for 98.0 percent of all suspected cases.
The UNICEF delegate in Nigeria lamented the situation, stating: “As of July 2023, 3,850 suspected cases had been reported, with 1,387 of them being identified as diphtheria cases.
Only 22% of the verified cases had their recommended childhood vaccinations, which is disheartening to see.
“The majority of these impacted children, notably those who sadly lost away, had not gotten even one dosage of the vaccination. It has never been more important to reach the unreached.
Mauduate went on to say that UNICEF is working closely with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), the affected states, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in order to plan and implement the response to the outbreak, which has affected children in about 27 states.
She continued by urging guardians and parents to make sure their kids have regular immunisations to guard them against diseases like diphtheria that can be avoided.
