Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance's chief executive, Sania Nishtar, has said that Nigeria will soon receive cholera vaccines to help in the fight against the current epidemic.
Ms Nishtar made this known in a post on her official X account on Thursday.
He said Gavi-funded cholera vaccines will soon arrive in Nigeria to combat the outbreak, supporting the government's efforts to contain and protect high-risk people.
“We are pleased that cholera vaccines from the Gavi-funded global vaccine stockpile will soon arrive in Nigeria to help curb the ongoing and deadly outbreak in the country. We stand ready to work with our partners, UNICEF and WHO, to support the timely efforts of Minister Muhammad Pate, the Nigerian Ministry of Health and NCDC to contain this outbreak and protect those most at risk,” he said.
Coordinating Minister for Health and Social Welfare Ali Pate. [PHOTO CREDIT: Twitter handle of Mr Pate | https://twitter.com/muhammadpate]
The minister reacts
Responding to Ms Nishtar, Coordinating Minister for Health and Social Welfare Muhammad Pate expressed his gratitude to Ms Nishtar for facilitating early access to Gavi-funded cholera vaccines.
He said these vaccines will be deployed efficiently and effectively to combat the current outbreak.
The Minister also appreciated the leadership of President Bola Tinubu in establishing a multi-sectoral cabinet committee to support the Emergency Operations Centre led by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (NCDC), in coordinating a national response across 36 states.
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Mr Pate said that although the country is seeing early signs of a slowdown in infections and deaths, authorities will maintain efforts to turn the situation around, adding that the arrival of cholera vaccines will strengthen our response.
He said the country is working to improve water and sanitation.
“We are accelerating efforts to improve water and sanitation infrastructure in the short and medium term, in collaboration with the Ministries of Water Resources and Environment, subnational governments, private sector partners and civil society. We appreciate the technical support and advocacy provided by UNICEF Nigeria,” the Minister said.
Cholera in Nigeria
The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Jide Idris, said Nigeria has recorded a total of 3,623 suspected cholera cases and 103 deaths across 34 states, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and 187 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in 2024.
Mr Idris said this on Tuesday while addressing reporters in Abuja.
NCDC Director General Jide Idris
He said the number of deaths translates into a cumulative fatality rate of 2.8 percent since the beginning of the year.
Mr Idris said there had been a decline in the number of cases in the past week.
“In this reporting week (July 8-14) the number of cases decreased by 5.6 percent compared to the previous week. We also recorded a drop in the case fatality rate from 2.9 percent to 2.8 percent,” he said.
Cholera response activities
Cholera is a waterborne disease caused by the ingestion of Vibrio cholerae, usually through contaminated water and food.
Water is often contaminated by the feces of infected people, which can occur at the source, during transport, or during storage at home.
In addition, food can be contaminated through dirty hands during preparation or consumption, leading to the spread of disease.
Symptoms of cholera include acute, profuse, painless watery diarrhea.
The agency said that as part of its response activities, it had distributed medical supplies for case management, infection prevention and control, and laboratories to all medical facilities in the country.
In addition, it has provided local and remote support to states such as Lagos and Ogun and has monitored daily reports and progress of response activities.
The agency also ensured ongoing training at subnational level for laboratory scientists on sample collection and analysis, as well as training of community mobilizers on key cholera messages.
Distribution of jingles, flyers and posters with key messages on cholera prevention to all states and the Federal Capital Territory.