Diphtheria and the challenge to health educators

According to reports, more than 1,376 deaths have been  recorded from diphtheria in the high-burden states infected with the cases: Kano, Yobe, Katsina, Bauchi, Borno, and Kaduna states. And, from 2022 to 2023, WHO reported that over 600 deaths were recorded with a case fatality ratio of 13 per cent among confirmed cases in the […]

According to reports, more than 1,376 deaths have been  recorded from diphtheria in the high-burden states infected with the cases: Kano, Yobe, Katsina, Bauchi, Borno, and Kaduna states. And, from 2022 to 2023, WHO reported that over 600 deaths were recorded with a case fatality ratio of 13 per cent among confirmed cases in the past. 

Instead of the cases significantly dropping annually, on January 14, 2024, according to the WHO African Region Health Emergency Situation Report, “A cumulative total of 27,991 suspected cases of diphtheria resulting in 828 fatalities were reported across Nigeria, Guinea, Niger, Mauritania, and South Africa. Nigeria is the most severely affected, accounting for 80.1 per cent of cases and 72 per cent of deaths.”

The deadly diphtheria that is caused by exotoxin-producing Corynebacterium diphtheriae is spread between people mainly by direct contact or through the air via viral respiratory droplets. The disease can affect all age groups; however, unimmunised children are particularly at risk. 

Therefore, avenues for an awareness have to be created by the health educators in our communities so as to make parents ’fully informed of the signs and symptoms of the disease as well as the dangers of being infected and how easily uninfected children could be infected.

Governments at all levels must be very cautious in attacking the deadly disease. Therefore the federal government collaborate with state and local governments to have unimmunised children who are at risk immunised.

I hope the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare will put more effort into making sure that the number of cases and deaths that are recorded annually are reduced or totally diminished.

 

Mallam Musbahu Magayaki wrote via  [email protected]