The two countries' provisional approval of the vaccine this month is unusual as the WHO is still assessing its safety and effectiveness. The mosquito-borne disease kills more than 600,000 people each year, most of them children in Africa.
Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation, is the world's worst-affected country with 27 per cent of global cases and 32 per cent of global deaths, according to a 2021 World Health Organization (WHO) report.
Nigeria has maintained COVID-19 vaccine rollout through campaigns and initiatives with the support of stakeholders, including Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. With COVAX, which Gavi co-leads with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), WHO and UNICEF have supplied over 91 million COVID-19 vaccines to Nigeria (about 65 per cent of all vaccines received) and over 669 million to the African continent.
The WHO's Coordinator in Anambra, Adamu Abdulnasir said in the statement the global health organisation is working with health officials in the state to provide medical services and strengthen disease surveillance to make sure that if a disease breaks out, help can be given quickly.
With the death toll rising to 171, the NCDC said the case fatality rate was 18.6 per cent, lower than that for the same period last year, which was 23.3 per cent.
Rotavirus is one of the leading causes of diarrhoeal disease in the world and is responsible for over 40 per cent of diarrhoea in children. Nigeria currently accounts for 14 per cent of all childhood rotavirus deaths globally, making it the country with the second-highest number of rotavirus deaths in the world. Rotavirus infection causes about 50,000 child fatalities under the age of five each year in Nigeria.
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention announced that in 2022 it has confirmed 21 out of 66 suspected cases of the disease, which is usually endemic in Nigeria and other parts of West and Central Africa.
Nigeria has already received 2 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from Finland, Greece and Slovenia with more expected from EU countries.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said monkeypox is a rare viral infection that does not spread easily between people and is usually a mild "self-limiting illness" and most people recover within a few weeks. However, severe illness can occur in some cases.
Measles cases spiked around the world in the first two months of 2022, triggering concerns about larger outbreaks, the Unicef warned.
Around 93% of India’s population is living in areas where levels of hazardous particulate matter PM2.5 are worse than the World Health Organisation’s least stringent norms and air pollution reduces life expectancy in the country by 1.5 years (more than cancer), according to reports of US-based Health Effects Institute (HEI) released on Thursday.
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