The Yobe Government has established a temporary Emergency Operations Centre in Potiskum town to contain cases of Cerebrospinal Meningitis, Type ‘C’, (MenC)
Dr Muhammed Gana, the Commissioner for Health, made this known in interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Damaturu on Thursday.
He said that the state government also designated the Potiskum Specialist Hospital as tertiary site for the management of meningitis and vaccination of more than 400,000 people against Type ‘C’ of the disease in the area.
Other measures taken by the state government, he said, include engaging ad hoc personnel including a professor of infectious diseases to take care of the cases, embarking on aggressive community sensitisation as well as carrying out of daily review meetings with partners on the situation at hand.
He added that over 200 community health influencers, promoters, and supporters were working across Potiskum and Fika local government areas to contain the outbreak.
”Additionally, 78 active case search teams are going house-to-house to find cases and refer them to health facilities.
”WE are being supported by 130 teams from the World Health Organisation (WHO), over 1,000 volunteer community mobilizers from UNICEF, and 1,800 voluntary informants across the state.
“The aim is to basically identify cases, report to the local government areas and refer them to nearest health facilities,” the commissioner explained.
The outcome of all these interventions, he said, iis that the state is recording reduced number of deaths.
The commissioner said that the state recorded 2,510 cases of MenC from Dec. 25, 2023 to April 2024.
Gana added that 85 patients died from the disease on or before reaching healthcare facilities.
