Fresh Fear of Measles Outbreak, As Benue Records 2000 New Cases

The Benue state government has recorded over 2000 new cases of measles in the last eight months, according to Vanguard.

The newspaper report quoted the State’s Health Educator at the Primary Health Care Board, PHCB, Emmanuel Beeka who said that part of the discovery is a new variant of the pandemic that has mostly killed children in Northern Nigeria.

In 2019, over 200,000 died of measles across the world, according to the World Health Organisation, WHO.

“Measles killed an estimated 207,500 people in 2019 after a decade-long failure to reach optimal vaccination coverage, resulting in the highest number of cases for 23 years,” Tedros Ghebreyesus, the Director General of WHO said.

“The death toll in 2019 was 50 per cent higher than a historic low reached in 2016, and all WHO regions saw an increase in cases, adding up to a global total of 869,770.

“This year, there have been fewer cases, but the COVID-19 pandemic has further set back vaccination efforts, with more than 94 million people at risk of missing measles vaccines in 26 countries that have paused their vaccination campaigns, including many countries with ongoing outbreak.

“These data sends a clear message that we are failing to protect children from measles in every region of the world,” he said.

Last month 50 people were killed by measles in Rivers state as community leaders called for government intervention.

The communicable disease was said to have been noticed first in Amurouttoru-Kugbo community and later spread to Emago-Kugbo and Akani-Kugbo in the clan, causing fatalities among children.

The situation in Benue state, many insist, must receive immediate intervention to stop the disease from spreading.

Speaking in Makurdi, the state’s capital, Breaka said the state government is doing everything on its part to roll back the spread of an outbreak in the state.

Part of the ongoing efforts, he explained, is the decision of the state government to key into the national vaccination intervention that has already kicked off this month.

The Health Educator stated that the scope of the exercise had been expanded stressing that children of nine months to 59 months would be vaccinated for measles while for Oral Polio, those from zero to 49 months would get vaccinated.

He appealed to members of the public to take advantage of the vaccination opportunities.

He said, “In the last two to three months there was an outbreak of measles in about 18 Local Government Areas, of the state where measles was identified and it is for that reason that there is every need to massively vaccinate the targeted age groups to check the spread.

“Apart from measles and Polio, COVID-19 vaccine will also be given to the people who are within the age group so that they will be adequately vaccinated against COVID-19.

“This is just as birth registration too will be carried out simultaneously during the mass vaccination campaign at vaccination points so that all children who have not been registered can do so to enable them have their birth certificates.”

He also explained the ongoing effort of the government to eradicate polio in the country.

“We are also carrying out an outbreak response for Polio. That is the Polio variant. It should not surprised you because we had said we had eliminated Polio, but another variant is discovered.

“It is similarly very dangerous and in order to try as much as possible to totally eradicate it, the vaccination activities are going on because the variant has been identified in some LGAs and to avoid some elements of doubt, total vaccination activities are going to the targeted at children of 0-5 years and 9-59 months.

“So, the outbreak response is to try as much as possible to do away with that variant that has been discovered. In addition to that, the measles mass vaccination activities which we intend to carry out as well is for the same purpose,” he said.

Polio (poliomyelitis), according to WHO mainly affects children under five years of age.

One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralysed, five to 10 percent die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.

As long as a single child remains infected, children in all countries are at risk of contracting polio. Failure to eradicate polio from these last remaining strongholds could result in a global resurgence of the disease.

Meanwhile, cases due to wild poliovirus have decreased by over 99 percent since 1988, from an estimated 350 000 cases, the world health body said, noting that six new cases were again discovered in 2021.