The Enugu State government, Friday, began the administration of vaccines against yellow fever targeted at over one million persons, mostly in the three local government areas that recently had cases of the disease.
THE WHISTLER reported that the two communities of Ette and Umuopu, both in Igboeze North Local Government Area, recently experienced the fever, leading to the death of about 51 persons. The ‘strange disease’ later spread to other local governments of Nsukka and Isi-Uzo, prompting the state government to adopt measures to curtail the spread.
According to the executive secretary of Enugu State Primary Health Care Development Agency (ENS-PHCDA), Dr George Ugwu, the vaccination exercise would target residents of Igboeze North LGA with estimated population of 333,551; Nsukka’s 398,094 residents, and Isi-Uzo’s 190, 818, representing 85 per cent of the population. He stated that after carrying out the vaccination in the affected LGAs, the exercise would be shifted to a set of other 10 local government areas, and finally to the entire residents of the state.
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According to him, “There is no need to panic or send the wrong information. The government is in control of yellow fever outbreak clinically, and has taken right and appropriate steps to see that our people are protected. Already, the agency has continued to engage in robust community mobilisation, sensitisation, health education and promotion.
“We have adequate supplies of yellow fever vaccines and accessories to all health facilities and outreach centres, as well as properly trained, oriented and deployed all cadres of health workers and teams. We are also doing mass reactive vaccination for eligible and most susceptible persons aged nine months to 44, as well as monitoring and reporting the outbreak response activities in the council areas.”