New cases of suspected meningitis has started to decline as a large vaccination campaign, which will cover over 800,000 persons aged between two and 29 years has commenced in Sokoto State .

As was contained in a press statement by Nigeria Centre for Disease Control NCDC  , a total of 628 new cases were reported in week 16 against 1,935 in week 15 and 2,127 in week 14.

The cumulative number of suspected cases recorded in Nigeria throughout the outbreak period is now 9,646 and 839 deaths from 43 Local Government Areas in 23 states.

Meanwhile NCDC disclosed that the total number of suspected cases will rise with each new case, and that the number of new cases recorded per week is dropping in the affected States indicating that the outbreak is likely to have peaked.

“We expect a continued decline in the number of new cases with the intensification of control measures in the affected states.”

Making remarks on this issue , The Cerebrospinal Meningitis (CSM) Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) says this recent assessment is indicative of the positive impact of current national and state interventions being coordinated by the EOC. According to the Incident Manager, “…these numbers are encouraging but it is too early to celebrate. We will continue to intensify the interventions in order to ensure that we effectively control this outbreak”.

However , identifying the need to provide technical support to all affected States in the areas of case management, epidemiology and risk communication , the statement noted that the Support teams are currently being deployed to the most affected States of Zamfara and Sokoto to further strengthen the response  support .

A national support team, led by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) will be providing support to Sokoto State in order to ensure that vaccination activities are well coordinated and efficiently delivered.

Partners from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and others are all collaborating with NPHCDA and NCDC to provide the best possible support to Sokoto during the vaccination efforts. Teams have been mobilised to all the LGAs in Sokoto state, and people are being mobilised to turn out en masse to be vaccinated.

According to Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, the CEO of NCDC, “The lessons from this outbreak will inform our future response activities. This includes the need to strengthen awareness, improve clinical skills of health workers, strengthen laboratory capacities to confirm diagnosis of meningitis promptly as well as do the best we can to access the vaccines required to prevent future outbreaks.”