The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) says diphtheria has killed 554 persons across 148 local government areas in 20 states.
The centre said the country had recorded 12,086 confirmed cases of diphtheria.
The NCDC stated this in the situation report posted on its website from week 19, 2022 to week 48, 2023, on Sunday.
“A total of 20,684 suspected cases were reported from 33 states across 280 LGAs. Kano (13,461), Yobe (2,234), Katsina (1,509), Bauchi (1,139), Borno (968), Kaduna (486) and Jigawa (256) accounted for 96.9 percent of suspected cases reported.
“Of the 20,684 suspected cases reported, 12,086 (58.4 percent) were confirmed cases (320 lab-confirmed; 0 epid linked; 11,766 clinically compatible), 4,509 (21.8 percent) were discarded, 1,844 (8.9 percent) are pending classification and 1,827 (8.8 percent) were unknown.
“The confirmed cases were distributed across 148 LGAs in 20 states. Kano (9,613), Yobe (966), Bauchi (614), Katsina (440), Borno (348), Jigawa (44), and Kaduna (24) accounted for 99.7 percent of confirmed cases reported.
“Majority [8,393 (69.4 percent)] of the confirmed cases were among children aged 1–14 years. Only 3,202 (26.5 percent) out of the 12086 confirmed cases were fully vaccinated with a diphtheria toxoid-containing vaccine,” the report partly read.
SOURCE: Punch
