Abuja, Aug. 9, 2023 – A total of 1,534 cases of diphtheria has been confirmed by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC).
The NCDC said this in its report covering May 2022 to July 2023 posted on its website.
It said 137 patients out of the 1,534 confirmed cases had died.
It also said 4,160 suspected cases had also been reported from 139 local government areas in 27 states across in the country.
NCDC gave the distribution of the confirmed cases across 56 local government areas as Kano (1,207), Yobe (252); Bauchi (41); Katsina (nine); Lagos (eight); FCT (six); Kaduna (five).
Others are Niger (two); Gombe (two); Osun (one); Jigawa (one); and Cross River (one).
It said that the suspected cases were reported as follows: Kano (3,233), Yobe (477), Katsina (132), Kaduna (101), Bauchi (54), FCT (41) and Lagos (30) and which accounted for 97.8 per cent.
“Of the 4,160 suspected cases reported, 1,534 (36.9 per cent) were confirmed (87 lab-confirmed; 158 epid linked; 1,289 clinically compatible), 1,700 (40.9 per cent) were discarded, 639 (15.4 per cent) are pending classification and 287 (6.9 per cent) unknown.
“The confirmed cases were distributed across 56 LGAs in 10 states. The majority (1,018 (66.4 per cent) of the confirmed cases occurred in children aged one to 14 years.
Diphtheria is caused by a toxin produced by the bacteria Corynebacterium diphtheriae, is a vaccine-preventable disease covered by one of the vaccines provided routinely through Nigeria’s childhood immunisation schedule. (GBN)
