FG needs $1bn to vaccinate 21m people in meningitis prone states – Minister

The Federal Government says it needs more than one billion dollars
for vaccines to eradicate meningitis epidemic in the five most affected
states in the Northern region.
The Minister of Health, Prof. Issac
Adewole, disclosed this while addressing an emergency meeting of the
Northern Traditional Council and the 19 Northern state Governors on
Tuesday in Kaduna.
The meeting was convened by the Sultan of
Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, to outline measures to tackle the
outbreak of meningitis epidemic in five states of the Northern region.
Adewole
said that the federal needed $1.087 billion to procure vaccines and
administer on some 21 million persons against the meningitis which broke
out in February in Zamfara, Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger and Katsina states.
He
said the federal government had collaborated with the state governments
and International ievelopment partners to tackle the outbreak in some
26 states so far affected in the country.
According to him, so far, 489 deaths had been confirmed in the 4,637 cases recorded as at April 10.
He
said that among the cases, 171 were confirmed to be the Type `C’ of
meningitis strand with Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina, Niger and Kebbi states
as most affected.
He said that the so far 823,000 doses of
conjugated type C had been delivered to the federal government by the UK
government, while UNICEF had delivered over one million Type A
vaccines.
The minister said the vaccines were enough to tackle the outbreak in the most affected states.
He
appealed to the traditional rulers in the region to be more proactive
with media and other forms of campaigns to sensitise people on the need
for good hygiene and ventilation as well as avoid overcrowding in their
homes
Adewole, however, appealed to State Governments to increase their
funding of the health sector to address the health challenges in the
region.
He urged the governors to invest more funds to revitalise
the health system in the northern states to tackle healthcare
challenges.
He explained that the country needed to increase its
funding from the $85 million to $378 million by 2025 to be able to meet
up with the health challenges.
Adewole said the federal government had embarked on upgrading of 10,000 primary healthcare centres across the country.
The
minister also urged state governments to tackle corruption among state
officials to enable them strengthen the weak health system in the
region.
“You must stop corruption, when funds are released, utilise the funds properly by tracking and proper monitoring.”
Meanwhile,
the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum and Gov. Abdulazeez Yari
of Zamfara said the state was worse hit by the meningitis due to lack of
information for early detection.
He said the state had confirmed 216 deaths out of the 2,350 cases recorded in the state since the disease broke out.
Yari said the state had received 45,000 doses of vaccines and so far no new case had been detected in the last three days.
He
said a high powered committee had been established by the governors and
the traditional rulers to brief President Muhammadu Buhari on the
measures being taken to stop the scourge in the region.
NAN reports that representatives of WHO, UNICEF, DFID and NEMA, among others, attended the event.
A communiqué is expected at the end of the meeting with resolutions on the way forward.