Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF), yesterday, called on the international community and Nigerian authorities to scale up support to improve treatment, preventive measures and contact-tracing to control diphtheria spread in Africa. 
  
It cautioned that low national vaccination coverage and a worldwide shortage of life-saving antitoxin drugs threaten to worsen the outbreak.  Diphtheria is a highly contagious and potentially life-threatening bacterial disease, which can present in respiratory or cutaneous forms. Without treatment, it can kill half of the people infected; even with treatment, the disease is still fatal in five per cent of patients . 
  
The outbreak is surging through Nigeria and neighbouring countries, requiring an urgent increase in access to medicines and vaccination. About 4,000 suspected cases were recorded in the country in August 2023 alone, with over three-quarters coming from Kano State. 
  
MSF emergency medical doctor in Nigeria, Hashim Omar, said: “We are seeing more than 700 people with suspected diphtheria and admitting more than 280 patients weekly in Kano’s two diphtheria treatment centres.” Women and under-five children are the most vulnerable groups in Kano, and they really need help.”
  
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) declared an outbreak of the disease on January 20, 2023; and between May 2022 and early September 2023 that over 6,000 confirmed cases were recorded. 
  
Omar said:” Our teams are responding to the outbreak in Kano, Borno and Bauchi states. However, responding to the outbreak has proven challenging, due to a worldwide shortage of life-saving diphtheria antitoxin used in treatment, caused by dwindling production capacity. 
  
“While we provided 2,000 doses of diphtheria antitoxin last month in Kano, securing doses of the antitoxin has been one of the biggest challenges in this crisis. We have placed an urgent additional order of 5,000 doses to cover the needs in our projects, but still, it is not enough.
  
“The decline in immunisation led to a reported 25 million un- or under-vaccinated children in Nigeria in 2021. However, funding for vaccines and implementation costs remains a barrier to scaling up; Kano alone requires millions of doses to target at-risk groups. In addition to urgent antitoxin and vaccination needs, we urge international organisations to immediately scale up improved surveillance and contact tracing and measures to strengthen the local health system.”