By Edoamaowo Udeme
The World Health Organization (WHO), supporting the Federal Government of Nigeria, will give a lifetime Yellow Fever protection to 154,131 persons aged between 9 months to 45 years with just one dose of reactive vaccination.
This was made known in Abuja by the WHO Country Representative(WR),
Dr Wondimagegnehu Alemu, who spoke at the launch of the reactive vaccination campaign in Danja local government area (LGA) of Katsina state in response to a recently identified outbreak of Yellow Fever.
According to him “The vaccination exercise to be implemented from 09 to 18 August 2018 complements government’s plan as guided by the Eliminate Yellow fever Epidemics (EYE) strategy by 2026, which was launched in April 2018”
“with one single injection, we can provide life-long immunity against this disease at a cost of approximately one US dollar (US$1).”
Dr Alemu added that “The campaign in Katsina is a reactive vaccination in response to confirmed Yellow Fever case and WHO is committed in continuing this effort and supporting Nigeria to better protect its population against this disease and ensure better health and well-being,”
Dr Alemu however noted that the availability of adequate vaccine supply to reach all those at-risk is a constant challenge.
“With the support of GAVI, WHO has therefore pledged a donation of 12 million doses of Yellow fever vaccines in 2018 and 19 Million in 2019 to Nigeria”
” The overall number of states where the vaccination drive has been implemented are 10 (Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Niger, Nasarawa, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Kogi, Kwara and Zamfara) and in IDPs camps in Borno state”. added Alemu
The Director, Disease Control and Immunization at the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) Dr Dorothy Nwodo, recently confirmed the level of preparations for the reactive campaign.
“all activities have been put in place as part of the pre-implementation to ensure quality implementation”. She said
“Supervisors, technical management support teams and Partners from the national level, have been deployed to supervise the activity to ensure quality campaigns.” said Dr Nwodo
“Preventive mass vaccination campaigns are underway for 08 – 17 November 2018 in Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, FCT, Plateau and Borno states as phase2b of Nigeria’s EYE strategic plan”.
“Nigeria aims to vaccinate 25 million citizens by the end of 2018 and the Polio infrastructure in the states continue to provide the required support to other non-polio vaccination campaigns”.
Nigeria has been experiencing outbreaks Since September 2017, and the ongoing outbreak of yellow fever, an acute viral haemorrhagic disease, with confirmed cases reported in 22 LGAs across 11 states.
From the onset of the outbreak, 2,400 suspected yellow fever cases including 47 deaths have been reported by the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
Yellow fever response in Nigeria is led by the government is coordinated through the National Yellow fever Technical Coordinating Committee (NYFTCC) with participation by all partners.
