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by Nkechi Onyedika-Ugoeze
A total of 4, 726 suspected cases of Lassa fever, 776 confirmed and 142 deaths have been recorded in 27 states across 123 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country.
Ondo, Edo, Bauchi, Taraba, and Benue are the hot spots and account for 81 percent of the Lassa fever cases in the country.
Similarly, about 2, 172 cases of Meningitis and 202 deaths have been recorded in 22 states and Yobe, Gombe, Jigawa, and Bauchi are the Hotspots for meningitis outbreak in the country.
Kano constitute about 75 percent of the Diphtheria Outbreak adding that most of these diseases are vaccine preventable.
Meanwhile, the NCDC has stressed the need to work out strategies to prevent diseases from happening, rather than waiting for them to occur in other to prevent Nigerians from dying.
Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (NCDC) Dr Jide Idris who disclosed this at during an engagement with the media in Abuja, lamented that despite the fact that Nigeria has a disease patterns and when they occur, many Nigerians still die every year as a result of these diseases which are mostly preventable.
He said, “It is better to prevent these diseases from happening rather than waiting for them to occur. We have seasonal calendar, we know our disease patterns and when they occur sill year in year out, they still occur and people die, we want to prevent people from drying”.
The Director General stated that the roadmap and strategic approaches to achieving the mandate of the agency is to lead the preparedness, detection, and response to public health emergencies adding that government must as a priority protect its citizens from any health issues and must as a priority prevent its citizens from contacting any diseases.
He noted that if however diseases occur, it is the responsibility of government to detect the type of disease and respond properly.
Idris observed that the Federal government needs to collaborate with the state governments to ensure that people are protected because the main crux of disease control is at the states and the Local government levels.
He noted that the agency needs to collaborate with other sectors under the One health agenda considering that so many diseases are zoonotic stressing that no matter the policies the government makes in health, “if we don’t bring in the Agriculture and environment sector, it will not be effective.
“This is because Diseases like Ebola, Monkeypox, Lassa fever, yellow fever, including the Covid-19 are all zoonotic diseases which affected humans. It is incumbent on NCDC to forge partnerships, we are in communication with the Forum of Health Commissioners, the Nigerian Governor’s Forum (NGF), there is need to know the social determinants in different zones.”
Idris emphasized that Health security requires money and addressing health security is not one side fits all.
According to him, Nigeria needs to fund researches that are country- specific.
He noted that there is a diconnect between the sub-national and the Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA), stressed the need partner with states.
