The Kano State Ministry of Health has denied the outbreak of measles in Kano Municipal Local Government Area.
In a statement issued by the Public Relations Unit of the ministry, the Director Public Health and Disease Control, Dr. Imam Wada Bello, was quoted to have debunked the story.
Daily Trust reported that authorities at the Kano Municipal Local Government Council of Kano State had confirmed an outbreak of measles in some parts of the local government area.
The Primary Health Care Coordinator of the area, Aliyu Jinjiri Kiru, disclosed this during a meeting of the Emergency Preparedness Response Committee at the local government secretariat.
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But denying the report on Wednesday, Dr. Imam pointed out that before a disease could be declared an outbreak, there were certain procedures and indexes to be considered, including laboratory investigations and examinations as well as assessing its gravity and number of people affected.
In the case of Kano Municipal LGA, according to him, “none of the procedures were conducted to warrant the declaration of measles outbreak, urging people to disregard the story because it lacks empirical and clinical evidences to substantiate it.”
The director said that the ministry was vigilant on all public diseases by taking all necessary measures to contain the effect of such diseases.
He further assured that the ministry and its 44 LGAs Emergency Preparedness Response (EPR) were on the alert to timely respond to outbreaks in collaboration with the relevant stakeholders.
Dr. Imam noted that the Surveillance Outbreak Response and Management System (SORMAS), a national dashboard that showcased summary of Kano State measles report from January to March 2024, indicated that there was 697 “suspected cases” in 23 LGAs in which Kano Municipal has the highest number of 647, adding that five samples were taken for laboratory test and none confirmed positive.
The director noted that Kano Municipal became the LGA with high number of “suspected cases” because of the presence of Hasiya Bayero Paediatric Hospital which serves as centralized facility for diagnosing and managing paediatrics cases including measles across the state, stressing that it was that centralization that made the facility to lead in high reporting incidence of cases in the LG compared to others.
When contacted, the Kano Municipal Primary Healthcare Coordinator, Aliyu Jinjiri Kiru, whom the outbreak report was attributed to, said he did not at any point made such declaration.
He emphasized that it was the report of the emergency preparedness response meeting that the information unit of the LGA wrongly perceived that there was an outbreak of measles in the locality.
Kiru said what the agency reported was that it received “suspected measles and diphtheria cases” from the health facilities within the LGA including secondary facility with intent to alerting the stakeholders to support the PHC department in order to curtail the situation in case it was confirmed.
