Meningitis: FG sets up emergency centre

Meningitis Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) has been established by the federal government to coordinate outbreak, control and response activities to the disease. This is coming as the outbreak has claimed 438 lives nationwide.



The Minister of Health, Prof Isaac Adewole, who disclosed this, assured that the government was prepared to tackle the recent outbreak in the northern part of the country. He added that efforts have been deployed to halt the transmission, treat cases and prevent future occurrences.

In an interview with The Nation on Sunday, the minister emphasised that “Our activities are focused on three key areas including surveillance to rapidly detect and report all new cases of the disease, provide effective treatment for everyone with the disease and to rapidly vaccinate at-risk populations to prevent further spread.”

He said the ministry has deployed staff to affected states to work with state Ministries of Health and primary health care boards to search for, document and report all new cases in affected wards and LGAs. This is along with increasing the testing of suspected cases by ramping up laboratory capacity at the national level and also in many states to increase case confirmation.

Drugs are also being provided to treat new cases while 500,000 doses of the Men C vaccine have been supplied to Zamfara State which is the epicentre of the outbreak.

Explaining why over 200 casualties were recorded, he said, “A certain strain- the serogroup A – is commonly experienced. But this year, we have observed a large increase in a different serogroup that requires different control approaches, specifically a different type of vaccine to control.”

He added that other factors that contributed to the high mortality rate were delay by patients in seeking medical attention despite symptoms such as fever and neck stiffness, self-medication especially with indiscriminate use of antibiotics for feverish symptoms and shortage of appropriate Men C vaccine in the country to commence immediate reactive mass vaccination campaign at the early peak of cases.

Prof Adewole observed that “Although outbreaks due to the serotype C have occurred in the past, never has it been this widespread and caused this level of fatalities. The commoner serotype is the A type, for which we conducted a large scale campaign in 2015 to eliminate it.”

When the C serotype outbreak occurred in Zamfara State, the reserved stock of C were deployed to reduce the spread of the disease. However, as more cases developed, the World Health Organisation (WHO) was approached and it released 500,000 doses of the vaccine while the United Kingdom has given another 800,000.

On new measures the ministry is taken to ensure the outbreak is contained, he said, “The lessons learnt in the past were ploughed in current planning, thus the effective reduction of the A type. However with new lessons now, we have already begun future interventions, which will be more holistic and more robust. We are already planning to use broader based vaccines with larger number of antigens; we will also review the vaccination schedules, inter-country coordination, cross border collaboration, etc. The future should be more secured.”

He emphasised that the federal government through the ministry is working with states to ensure they are adequately prepared in outbreak cases, adding, “One of the pillars of this administration is the revitalization of the Primary Health Care system. This will ensure there are facilities and personnel available for early case detection and treatment. We are also working with traditional and religious rulers to sensitize their communities to be better aware of the disease and preventive measures.”

On what the ministry was doing to ensure such outbreaks are prevented in future, he said, “The ministry takes the work of protecting the Nigerian public very seriously. We are strengthening the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, which is the parastatal responsible for a strong surveillance system as well as designing effective disease prevention, and control mechanisms to keep Nigerians safe, strong and healthy.”