The expected doses Nigeria to Receive Nine Million Doses of Oral Vaccines of vaccines will ensure the implementation of two campaigns in 14 LGAs across nine states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The World Health Organisation (WHO) country representative, Walter Mulombo, has said Nigeria is expected to receive approximately nine million doses of Oral Cholera Vaccines (OCV).

Mr Mulombo said this while speaking at the opening ceremony of the Global Task Force on Cholera Control (GTFCC) training on OCV request and campaign planning in Abuja on Monday. The training organised by WHO aims to integrate OCV into the emergency and preventive measures of cholera in Nigeria.

Mr Mulombo said the expected vaccines will ensure the implementation of two campaigns in 14 LGAs across nine states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). He said this would significantly mitigate the risk of an upsurge of cholera cases, especially during the rainy season.

He explained that over 1.7 million persons are already vaccinated with two doses of OCV across seven LGAs in four states; Bauchi, Jigawa, Yobe and Zamfara. He noted that the training of the task force is not only timely but also a good opportunity for everyone to remember the goal of eradicating cholera.

“We are calling upon all member states to embrace the one health approach to respond to cholera outbreaks,” he said. Cholera is an acute diarrheal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholera.

It appears periodically in countries unable to secure access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation like Nigeria. Although a preventable and treatable disease, the number of cholera cases tends to increase with the outset of the rainy season.

Mr Molumbo said Nigeria has degraded its biggest Cholera outbreak which commenced in 2021 with over 100,000 suspected cases reported. In 2021 alone, Nigeria lost no fewer than 3,604 persons to Cholera, according to data from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

Mr Mulombo reiterated the need for early allocation and shipment of these vaccines to ensure the vaccinations are timely. He advised that all opportunities for vaccination campaigns are used to specifically target areas with huge zero doses and ensure that those often-missed children are not only offered OCV but opportunities for all routine vaccination.

He said some challenges identified during the 2021 annual GTFCC stakeholder meeting include poor-quality reactive and preventative OCV campaign requests, lack of OCV use as an outbreak response in some settings, and inadequate monitoring and evaluation of OCV campaigns.

Soucre: This news is originally published by allafrica

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