The United Nations Children Fund [UNICEF] has donated 850,000 doses of vaccines to Sokoto State government to tackle Cerebrospinal Meningitis in the state.
Mohammad Mohiuddin, UNICEF chief, Sokoto Zonal Office, made the disclosure on Wednesday in Sokoto at a sensitisation meeting for media practitioners, religious and traditional leaders, as well as other stakeholders.
He also said that UNICEF had released N17 million to the government for logistics and social mobilisation activities.
“In response to the recent CSM outbreak in the states, UNICEF is delivering about 850,000 doses of meningitis vaccines to Sokoto state government,” he said.
On the meeting, the official said it was part of the support UNICEF has been providing in response to the meningitis outbreak in Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara states.
Mohiuddin explained that the sensitisation meeting was to empower the participants on ways to engage members of their communities in passing key messages to contain the outbreak.
He said UNICEF had been using it’s field network consisting of local government area consultants, voluntary community mobilisers and volunteers to also pass down key messages on healthy living.
“The communities in Bodinga, Rabah, Dange Shuni, Sokoto North, Sokoto South, Tureta, Goronyo, Isa, and Gwadabawa are being sensitized especially on current CSM campaign and the date, place and time of vaccination.
“For the remaining 14 councils, community members were informed on prevention and how to seek help from health personnel,” he said.
Mohiuddin said that UNICEF was committed to preventing children from infections and ensuring that they gained access to vaccination.
It will be recalled that about 700 people died of meningitis in Nigeria. The majority of victims were kids and adolescents from 5 to 15 years of age.
Meningitis appears from time to time in Nigeria, for instance, in 2015 about 10 000 people took over it and 1100 dispatched.
Concerning this tragic statistics, since the beginning of 2017 more than 2000 people had this disease and completely recovered.
However, the case is becoming extremely serious because the epidemic as a matter of urgency has not been stopped yet owing to the lack of meningitis vaccine in Nigeria.
Now it is known that meningitis has spread in 15 states of the country already and no less than 3 million people need to be vaccinated. Such a disastrous situation
Source – NAN
