A new document tagged ‘Situation at a glance’ on Meningitis in Nigeria, released yesterday, by World Health Organisation (WHO), showed that from October 1, 2022 to April 16, 2023, a total of 1,686 suspected cases, 532 confirmed cases and 124 deaths, with a Case Fatality Ratio (CFR) of seven per cent were reported from 81 councils (LGAs) in 22 out of the 36 states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
CFR measures severity of disease by defining the total number of deaths as a proportion of reported cases at a specific time.
According to the report, males account for 57 per cent of total suspected cases.
“The highest proportion of reported cases is among children aged one to 15 years. Jigawa State accounts for 74 per cent of all suspected cases, and this state borders the Zinder region in Niger, where a meningitis outbreak has been reported since October 2022,” it noted.
WHO said 481 cerebrospinal fluid samples were collected from patients in 18 states. Out of the samples, 247 tested positive for bacterial infection by PCR test. Among the positive cases, 226 (91 per cent) were caused by Neisseria meningitidis serogroup C (NmC), while 13 cases (5.4 per cent) were caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, and only one case (0.4 per cent) by Haemophilus influenzae. For 232 samples, the result was negative, with two others pending.
In the last five weeks alone (epidemiological weeks 11-15), 41 out of 140 samples tested (29 per cent) were positive for NmC. The confirmed cases were reported from eight states, including Jigawa (231), Zamfara (six), Yobe (five), Benue (one), Gombe (one), Katsina (one), Oyo (one) and Sokoto (one).
According to the global health agency, of Jigawa’s 27 LGAs, 25 have reported at least one suspected case. There have been 66 deaths in the state. During the current outbreak, Maigatari LGA and Sule-tankarkar LGA have both crossed the epidemic threshold of 10 suspected cases per 100,000 population and account for 60 per cent of the total reported cases, with 505 and 247 cases respectively.
