No vaccine-related deaths at UBTH, says management
The Enugu State Government has said it recorded 100 per cent coverage in its measles–rubella vaccination campaign, reaching over two million children statewide.

The Chief Executive Officer and the Executive Secretary of the State’s Primary Health Care Development Agency, Ifeyinwa Ani-Osheku, disclosed this to newsmen.

Mrs Ani-Osheku said that the exercise, held from February 4 to 24, 2026, reached 2,193,001 children across all 17 local council areas of the state.

She said data from the state’s validated immunisation reporting platform confirmed that the campaign had fully covered the targeted demographic.

“We successfully reached our target population of 2,193,001 children. We achieved 100 per cent coverage of the target population,” she said.

According to her, the outcome significantly strengthens herd immunity against measles and rubella, two highly contagious viral diseases that can cause serious complications in children.

Meanwhile, the management of University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) has described as “false and misleading” information circulating on the media and social media that children died at the hospital as a result of receiving the Measles–Rubella (MR) vaccine.

Clarifying the incident in a statement issued to journalists in Benin yesterday by the Head, Public Relations and Information Unit,  Osaretin Iyen, the management said that though some children, who received the vaccine elsewhere, were brought to UBTH Children’s Emergency Ward for medical attention on account of febrile illness, they were treated, stabilised, and subsequently discharged in good health.

He said: “UBTH categorically states that these reports are false and misleading.”

UBTH management, however, admitted that only an eight-year-old male child with sickle cell disease, who was admitted for treatment alongside others in the Children’s Emergency Ward of the hospital, died.