Low vaccination rates and incomplete immunisation among children are driving the resurgence of diphtheria across Nigeria, a public health expert, Dr Isaac Egboja, has warned.
Egboja, who spoke in an interview on ARISE NEWS on Friday, identified missed vaccine doses, overcrowding in internally displaced persons’ (IDP) camps and insecurity as major factors increasing children’s vulnerability to the disease.
He said outbreaks had continued to pose a serious threat in several states, including Kano, Katsina, Plateau, Niger, Bauchi and Borno, with Kano remaining the primary epicentre.
“One of the main reasons or indications is that a lot of children have not been immunized at all or are not completely immunized. When I say not completely immunized, they may have taken some doses of the vaccine, but they didn’t complete them.
For diphtheria, for example, you have to take DPT 1, DPT 2, 3, and 4. Four doses, even up to five sometimes—the fifth one usually being a booster.
“When we talk about poverty, we are actually referring to overcrowded situations. There are IDP camps—internally displaced camps—where people live in very substandard conditions
and are overcrowded, usually with children. As a result of insecurity, many children who should have received their vaccines at scheduled times have not been able to do so because they didn’t have access. Because of high dropout rates, the likelihood of diphtheria spreading is very high. More than that, if one person is infected and it is not detected early, it will spread very fast,” he said.Egboja also warned that shortages of diphtheria antitoxin and other essential medical supplies could further complicate treatment efforts, stressing that early intervention significantly improves patients’ chances of survival.
“The quicker you are able to intervene to treat a patient, the higher the chances of survival for that patient. If a person is infected and you don’t get the antitoxin—because this bacterium produces toxins—there are two approaches to the fight: the fight to neutralize the toxin and the fight to kill the bacterium. If you get one and not the other, you are not okay. Unfortunately, from what we are hearing, they don’t have enough supply of the medical needs that they require.”
