The Chairman of the National Immunization Finance Task Team, NIFT, Ben Anyene, restated the authorities’ helplessness over the health emergency on Thursday while addressing journalists in Abuja.
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The National Vaccine Financing Task Team was inaugurated by the former executive director of the Nigeria Primary Health Care Development Agency, Ado Bayero, in recognition of the need for more coordinated effort around vaccine financing and security.
Reiterating that the government does not have enough vaccines, Mr. Anyene said that Nigeria is in dire need of divine intervention to contain the disease which has claimed over 700 lives since its outbreak in November 2016.
The Governor of Zamfara, Abdulaziz Yari, whose state is worst hit by the outbreak with close to 300 recorded deaths, had drawn widespread criticism about a forthnight ago when he attributed the epidemic to God’s anger over the sins of Nigerians.
Speaking on Thursday, however, Mr. Anyene said Nigeria is facing scarcity of vaccines due to lack of proper planning.
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“The constraint with immunization of meningitis is that there is no vaccine and that is the truth of the fact. The C strain of meningitis is not very common, but it does happen. The sign has been there in the country for the past three years but nobody wanted to take note”, he stated.
“For countries that plan, you don’t have to wait to have a situation. Through their planning and preventive measures, they have these vaccines stocked. You heard them talking about vaccine coming from Britain. Britain doesn’t have meningitis but because of planning, they have some stock but Nigeria does not have such. Read Full Story>>>
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