The Sokoto State Commissioner of health, Ali Inname, has said the state recorded 1,000 cases of measles between January to March this year.
Mr Inname, who spoke in Sokoto, said the cases were recorded in all the 23 local government areas of the state.
While urging parents to embrace the habit of taking their children for immunization, Mr Inname said those affected were mostly unvaccinated children.
“Though there were cases of children who were vaccinated but still got affected. But their cases were not severe compared to those unvaccinated.”
The commissioner said that some children lost their lives in three communities of Dan Madi, Kaurare and Aljannare in Tambuwal Local Government.
He said despite the provision of 500 centres for routine immunisation across the state, some parents are still resisting the call to have their children immunised.
“In Sokoto state, we’ve 500 centres that are providing routine immunization and we have adequate vaccines. But we have some communities that are still not responsive to our immunization campaigns,” he said.
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He said medical officers have been dispatched to the most affected areas to study the situation.
According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Sokoto State is one of eight states in the country with the worst cases of measle outbreaks in the country. The state is also one of the states with the lowest rates of child immunisation.
The United Nation Children Fund estimates that less than one-tenth of the children in the state receive immunisation against early childhood diseases like measles.
Infant mortality in the state is as high as 78 per 1,000 live births. In 2017, the state government initiated a programme to roll back the outbreak of measles in the state. It launched a vaccination campaign that was aimed at immunising 1 million children against measles. But the recent outbreak in the state indicates that the campaign was far from reaching its mark.
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