Diphtheria: Kano leads with over 7,700 suspected cases as infection affects 20 states, FCT-NCDC

Nigeria Centre for Disease and Prevention Control (NCDC) says 15,060 suspected cases of diphtheria have been detected in the country just as it gives an update on the national response to the resurging diphtheria outbreak in the country.

NCDC Director General, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, said this at the Diphtheria National briefing on Thursday in Abuja.

He said as of Thursday, there had been 15,060 reported suspected cases of diphtheria with 9,478 confirmed cases across 137 local government areas in 20 states, including the Federal Capital Territory.

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The breakdown by state shows that Kano has the highest number of cases at 7,747, followed by Yobe with 841 cases.

He said the data also revealed that 71.5 percent of the confirmed cases were aged between 1-14 years, with infants accounting for less than one percent of the cases.

In response to the outbreak, Adetifa said that the NCDC had deployed National Rapid Response Teams (NRRTs) to the affected states, offering on-site surveillance and response support.

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He, however, lamented that security challenges had limited accessibility to some locations in some of the affected local government areas.

He added that over 4,859,181 children had been vaccinated against the disease in the second phase of the response.

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He said the epicenter of the epidemic, Kano State, had vaccinated 1,111,310 children with Td vaccines (Diphtheria and tetanus), and 544,737 children with Pentavalent vaccines in phase two.

He added that similarly, Kaduna, Bauchi, Borno, Katsina, Jigawa, and Yobe had vaccinated hundreds of thousands of children through dedicated vaccination campaigns.