By Dorcas Daniel
allafrica.com
Zamfara, the worst-hit state in the just-ended outbreak of cerebrospinal meningitis, says it has learnt lessons and is 90% ready to combat a future outbreak, after training and mobilizing health workers in anticipation.
Executive secretary of Zamfara State Primary Health Care, Yusuf Marafa, said, "We have learnt our lesson and have taken measures because we don't want it to happen [again]. I can't say we are 100% ready but I can say we are above 90% ready."
He was speaking in Zamfara at the start of media visit by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to assess the impact of the epidemic on affected populations and take lessons from Nigeria's response to it.
A total 14,518 suspected cases of meningitis were reported from 25 states during the outbreak, and 1,166 died before NCDC declared it over in June.
"We have strengthened our routine immunization and very fortunately we are going to review our basket fund which only Zamfara state has, which is being contributed by local government chairmen, state government and even partners every month, just to carry out routine immunization," said Marafa.
"Instead of 666 health facilities that are provided with routine immunization now, we want to expand it 700. So we have a plan to cover the whole state."
The state has also appointed focal persons for routine immunisation for each council area to make vaccination more effective.
It is also looking to increase council area vaccine support by N60,000 on top of the current N218,000 in efforts to cover underserved and hard-to-reach areas.
The Community Health Officer, Shagari Primary Health Centre, Birini Ruwa Gusau, Bashiru Isah, said that it was difficult to combat CSM in the state due to of lack doctors and knowledge of the type of meningitis that broke out.
Bashiru mentioned that the healthcare centre has about 20 health care workers but had no doctor on ground during the outbreak, adding that there is no doctor stationed at the healthcare facility.
He recalled that during the CSM outbreak, they were overwhelmed by patient influx as the facility was getting over 30 patients per day.
He commended the government for responding swiftly by sending five doctors who supported the health workers at the height of the outbreak, adding that when the vaccines arrived, they had easy access to it.
"We couldn't identify the type of meningitis in the beginning which lead to the death of about 20 people until the doctors came and started running tests.
He however called on the government to improve the facility as the state of the facility as there are no enough mattresses for patients, lack of electricity, and shortage of wards, among others.
"We only have seven mattresses and we get up to 50 to 60 outpatient everyday and most times we lay the patients on the floor or we ask them to come with their own mattress.
"We have just one ward where we admit both male and female, children and adults which is not good enough.
"We also do not have ambulance or means to convey patients during referral cases and we do not have light, during the CSM outbreak we were even using candles to treat patients," he lamented.
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