WHO Deploys 9 million Doses of Oral Cholera Vaccine in 9 States

Onyebuchi Ezigbo

As part of efforts to arrest cholera outbreak in Nigeria, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said it has approved the deployment of approximately nine million doses of Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV) to 14 Local Government Areas in nine states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

The vaccination campaign was a follow up to an earlier one in which over 1.7 million persons were vaccinated each with two doses of Oral Cholera Vaccination(OCV) across seven LGAs in four states of Bauchi, Jigawa, Yobe and Zamfara.

In a speech delivered at the WHO training on the integration of Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV) in emergency and preventative held in Abuja, yesterday, the Africa Regional Director, WHO Country Representative, Dr. Walter Kazadi Molumbo said it was expected that the vast experience built in Nigeria over the years in implementing mass vaccination campaigns would be put to use in implementing the latest vaccination campaign.

“Working in line with the preparedness towards future campaigns, we believe that the recently approved GTFCC application for Nigeria with approximately nine million doses of OCV to implement two campaigns in 14 LGAs in 9 states, including the FCT would significantly mitigate the risk of and upsurge of cholera cases during this raining season.

“However, we wish to further reiterate the need for the early allocation and shipment of these vaccines to ensure these vaccinations and carries out sooner than later,” he said.

Molumbo said the challenges identified during 2021 annual GTFCC stakeholder meeting included poor quality reactive and preventative OCV campaign requests; lack of OCV use as an outbreak response in some settings and inadequate monitoring and evaluation of OCV campaigns need to be addressed.

According to him, WHO was cognisant of the need to implement quality campaigns and the operational challenges in different contexts. 

“Nigeria has demonstrated capacity to implement campaigns in difficult settings, including security challenges as experienced in the 2 LGAs in Zamfara as well as addressed and improved Campaign data quality, through the use of real time reporting by vaccination teams using hand mobile phones. 

“We believe that the vast experience built in Nigeria over the years in implementing mass vaccination campaigns, will come to bear, as we prepare for these preventive campaigns.

“We are confident that the opportunity of this training for knowledge sharing from the three levels of the organisation and the multiple country participants, will not only help improve on the gaps identified but also ensure that countries are better prepared to request, plan and implement quality campaigns with OCV as part of their national Cholera control plans and further contribute the long-term goal of Ending Cholera by 2030,” he said.