In the isolated part of a hospital in Kano, northern Nigeria, where dozens of patients are being treated for diphtheria, a 10-year-old girl lies on a stretcher in a glass cubicle surrounded by three nurses.
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“She has diphtheria and we have to admit her to the intensive care unit,” Usman Hassan, a doctor at Murtala Mohammed hospital supported by the NGO Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders), told AFP, his face covered by a mask . MSF).
Nigeria is currently struggling to contain the worst outbreak of diphtheria since 1989, a highly contagious bacterial infection that attacks the respiratory tract and skin.
After the first recorded cases in 2022, the epidemic has spread to nearly half of the country’s 36 states, infecting 14,000 people and killing about 800 since the start of the year.
Most cases and infections were recorded in Kano state, one of the most populous and poorest in the country.
According to MSF, 10,700 cases of diphtheria and more than 500 deaths had been recorded in Kano as of Thursday, with women and children under five years of age being the most vulnerable groups.
Without treatment, diphtheria can kill half of those infected and remains fatal in 5% of treated patients.
In the country of 215 million, diphtheria vaccinations have declined since 2020 as global attention focused on combating the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Kano Health Commissioner Abubakar Laban Yusuf, this is “the main reason for the recovery we are witnessing in Kano today,” blaming the pause in vaccinations on the previous state government that left power in May.
According to him, Kano accounts for 80% of diphtheria infections in Nigeria because the state failed to carry out routine vaccinations for 19 months.
Distrust of vaccines
Kano state alone needs 31 million doses of vaccine for at-risk groups, a target that Doctors Without Borders says is difficult to achieve due to “supply and funding constraints.”
According to Hussein Ismail, MSF project coordinator in Kano, “there is a global shortage of diphtheria vaccines (…). It takes 15 days to produce one vial of vaccine and global demand is high.”
The NGO is asking the international community for support. It has so far provided 7,000 diphtheria vaccines to Kano while the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) donated 1.2 million doses to the state last month.
The distrust of vaccinations among the population is another challenge for the Nigerian health authorities.
Last week, two mothers claimed that their children had developed kidney complications after being vaccinated against diphtheria.
Her claims, broadcast on local radio, quickly spread. “These allegations have thrown a spanner in the works as many people are now skeptical about the diphtheria vaccination and we need to raise awareness about it,” Ali-Suwaid warned.
Mistrust of vaccines is not new.
The state suspended polio vaccination for 13 months between 2003 and 2004 after rumors emerged that the polio vaccine contained substances that could make girls infertile, as part of a Western conspiracy to depopulate Africa.
This exposure had made Kano the epicenter of transmission to other parts of the world previously polio-free.
Although authorities have now resumed polio vaccination, doubts remain about the safety of the vaccines.