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| Thousands of meningitis cases have been reported by the health ministry in the northern states Zamfara, Kebbi, and Sokoto since November 2016, in Nigeria's worst outbreak of the disease since it killed more than 2,000 people in 2009. |
When six-year old
Mohammed Waziga arrived at a health centre in northwest Nigeria complaining of
joint pains and drowsiness, he was given an injection and sent home without any
concerns.
Thomson
Reuters Foundation report continues:
However
his suffering grew worse, and his family rushed him to a different facility in
Zamfara state, where he was diagnosed with meningitis, marking yet another case
in an outbreak which has killed more than 800 people so far this year in the
north.
"We
are grateful to Allah that he got better," his grandmother Zainab said at
the health centre, sitting next to Mohammed who was lying on a makeshift bed
under a shea tree because there was no room for him in any of the wards.
"He
keeps asking me when we will go home, and I worry again that I will lose
him," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Thousands
of meningitis cases have been reported by the health ministry in the northern
states Zamfara, Kebbi, and Sokoto since November 2016, in Nigeria's worst
outbreak of the disease since it killed more than 2,000 people in 2009.
Meningitis
is the inflammation of tissue surrounding the brain and spinal cord, which can
be caused by viral or bacterial infections. It spreads mainly through kisses,
sneezes, coughs and in close living quarters.
Nigeria
has launched a mass vaccination campaign and started conducting house-to-house
searches to identify those afflicted with meningitis for treatment, as the
state and aid agencies race to contain the surge in infections in recent
months.
"What
is important now is that we provide an information vaccine to our people, on
how the virus is contracted and warn against cross infection," said Yusuf
Lawal, state coordinator for the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH2)
programme.
RACE
TO CONTAIN
In
mainly Muslim Zamfara, home to over 3.2 million people and known for its strict
religious Sharia code, health centres are full to the brim, with makeshift
wards made of bamboo setup outside of hospital grounds for sick and recovering
patients.
"Initially
the response from the state government was not appropriate," said Bature
Mannir, secretary of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA).
State
governor Abdulaziz Yari was reported by local media last month as saying the
outbreak was God's punishment for sin.
"However
things changed and the (response) is yielding a very good result as the number
of cases have drastically reduced," Mannir added. "The state and all
other stakeholders need to sustain the tempo until the situation is contained."
The
state government has set up a committee to distribute vaccines and drugs, while
aid organizations like Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are working with the
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to try to control the meningitis
outbreak.
At
least 1.3 million vaccines have been acquired, 500,000 of which were provided
by World Health Organization, according to the federal government.
Yet
given the regular occurrence of meningitis, which killed 33 people in Nigeria
last year, more must be done to strengthen health systems in the affected
states, say experts like Mannir.
Such
investment may be a long way off as the government struggles to deal with its
first recession in 25 years amid falling oil prices, and a humanitarian crisis
created by Islamist militant group Boko Haram, Nigeria observers say.
Sitting
in a clinic in Zamfara, where her two sons, aged 13 and four, were recovering
from meningitis, Zainab Abdulazeez stared at the empty bed of a child who died
during the night.
"I cried and cried ...
it could have been my children."
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