Save the Children International (SCI) has called for the launch of a wide-scale health response with mass vaccination campaigns across the worst hit areas to curtail the spread of Diphtheria outbreak.
SCI also appealed to donors to support the comprehensive response being launched by the government and humanitarian organisations to support local health services to cope with the influx of diphtheria cases.
Chief Impact Officer of the organization Ebrima Saidy while briefing newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday, said Nigeria already had one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world.
According to him, “Only 42% of children under 15 in Nigeria are fully protected from diphtheria, and in this most recent outbreak, 80% of the confirmed cases have been found to be people who are unvaccinated.”
Saidy explained that so far, over 7,200 cases and over 450 deaths have been confirmed since the outbreak started.
He said three in every four confirmed cases or 73.6% of all cases are of children under 14, with those aged between 5-14 years bearing the brunt of the disease.
“Diphtheria is a vaccine-preventable disease that has largely been eradicated across the world, although periodic outbreaks happen in places where large groups of children have missed this routine vaccination, ” he said.
In his words “Since January 2023, SCI has made significant strides in reaching out to those in need, with a total outreach of over 1,590,047 individuals (64% children), emphasizing the organization’s childcentrality in its humanitarian efforts.
“In order to be responsive to the evolving humanitarian needs in Nigeria, SC’s approach to scaling up operations integrates strategic foresight, which is more centric to triple nexus (humanitarian, development, and peace building) and high field-level efficiency, characterized by the locally led responses and partner led implementation,” he said.
