Mass vaccination against cerebrospinal meningitis will start Thursday in Katsina, as the state Primary Health Care Development Agency has confirmed it received 50,000 doses of vaccines out of the 500,000 it requested.
The Executive Chairman of the agency Dr Maawuya Aliu in a chat with Daily Trust said the exercise will commence in the key 5 primary LGA’s where it was first reported namely Batsari, Jibia, Batagarawa, Faskari and Funtua.
According to him, priority attention will be given to children between the ages of 2-14 years noting that they are the most affected and vulnerable ones.
“Even at these LGA’s, we plan to commence, the exercise will be at settlements where the cases were first reported since the vaccines are not that enough at the moment,” he said
He said personnel have already been trained for the exercise which will commence from Thursday to Saturday adding that we will expand as the vaccines requested keeps coming.
“The federal government has the exclusive rights with regards to purchase of vaccines, we have reached out and made our request’” he said
When the first case was reported Mid Febuary Aliu said no fewer than 199 suspected cases were recorded out of which 58 samples were taken and 31 turned out positive just 41 deaths were recorded.
