Measles admissions to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) facilities in Maiduguri, Northeastern Nigeria, skyrocketed to all-time highs between October and December 2023. Despite the vaccination efforts, this concerning state calls for a prompt reinforcement of routine immunization campaigns.
In 2023, MSF teams treated 9,618 cases of measles in its two hospitals, the Gwange Paediatric Hospital and the Nilefa Kiji Nutrition Hospital, as well as in the basic healthcare (PHC) centers that MSF supports in Maiduguri. The MSF medical coordinator, Abdulwahab Mohamed, addresses the 3,965 patients treated between October and December, saying, “We did not expect such a large influx of patients, particularly at the end of the year.” This is almost three times more than for the same period in 2022.
The worrying increase in infections is attributed by Dr. Jombo Tochukwu-Okoli, MSF Medical Activity Manager at Gwange Paediatric Hospital, to public health actors’ failure “to achieve the 95% vaccination rate, required to suppress measles.” According to Dr. Tochukwu-Okoli, “This is notably due to the difficulties for the health workers to access rural communities surrounding Maiduguri,” since the instability has made vaccination efforts challenging.
There are other obstacles in the way of increasing immunization rates. Routine immunization campaigns have been negatively impacted by the disruption of health systems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic’s suspension of kid vaccination programs. Defective vaccines can also caused by technical issues that disrupt the cold chain.
It is concerning that there is a complicated security situation in Northern Nigeria, that international donors have significantly reduced their assistance to Nigeria, and that public health infrastructure is still being neglected. A perfect storm for a worsening of the humanitarian situation in 2024 may be approaching, as MSF is warning national and international stakeholders. This is due to the high prevalence of vaccine-preventable diseases, including measles, diphtheria, and meningitis.
