The Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (BSPHCDA) has confirmed an outbreak of diphtheria in six local government areas of the state.
The executive chairman of the agency, Dr Rilwanu Mohammed, confirmed the outbreak at a news conference on Wednesday in Bauchi, NAN reports.
He said the agency has collected 58 samples from suspected cases of the disease since January 2023.
“Two of the three confirmed diphtheria cases died in Jama’are Local Government Area of the state. These cases are mostly among nomads and children with zero immunisation doses. The disease is among children between the ages of eight months and four years, and there is a case of a seven-year-old child. The agency had closed schools in Jama’are because of the reported suspected cases of the disease in a school,” he said.
According to Mohammed, the agency will scale up the immunisation of pupils in schools across the affected communities.
Meanwhile, the agency has confirmed an outbreak of Yellow Fever following the report of 248 suspected cases in Dambam, Ganjuwa, and Jama’are LGAs.
“We have nine presumptive positive cases, of which five have been confirmed,” he said, while he also decried delays associated with obtaining the results of the suspected cases from the laboratory.
“Samples from the states are sent to the National Reference Laboratory in Abuja, where they are taken to Dakar in Senegal; that is the problem we are facing,” he said.