Nigeria: Yellow Fever Spreads to 7 States, 1,640 Cases Recorded

Nigeria has recoded over 1,640 suspected cases of Yellow fever with 41 confirmed cases according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Reference Laboratory in Dakar, Senegall, National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) has said.

Meanwhile, about seven states in the country have reported the outbreak of Yellow fever and the states include: FCT, Kogi, Anambra, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Edo and Benue.

Executive Director of NPHCDA, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, who stated this yesterday in Abuja said that government has enough vaccines to contain the outbreak of yellow fever as about 6million doses were in its stockpiles while additional doses have been added.

He said, "There is a global stockpile of vaccine meant for such outbreaks.The vaccines are supposed to be for prevention, Nigeria is one the high risk countries in Africa for yellow fever. So there is stockpile of vaccine and as at the last time, it was about 6m doses with additional vaccine doses that are added to that".

Shuaib, who expressed government's readiness in ensuring local production of vaccines, disclosed that the federal government is committed to establishing a reference laboratory in the country within the next six months to reduce the logistics challenges with sample transportation and laboratory turnaround time and ultimately reduce the response time and consequently the morbidity and mortality rates.

Culled from: AllAfrica.com 

https://allafrica.com/stories/201811270072.html