Vaccine indifference in Nigeria promotes yellow fever outbreak – New Delhi Times

Despite the availability of vaccines since 2004, yellow fever broke out in Nigeria this year, killing more than 170 people. Preference for traditional herbal medicine is part of the problem among some Nigerians. But experts said local indifference to vaccines was the biggest challenge.

The Nigerian car wash Jonathan Sale suffered from yellow fever in a junior high school 23 years before vaccines were available to treat viral illnesses.

“When I got the illness, my lips turned yellow, my tongue turned yellowish, and I was vomiting yellow, yellow, yellow,” Sale said. Told. “I thought I would die, and God saved me. I went to the hospital, and they gave me an IV and some medicine.”

Nigeria has been vaccinated against yellow fever since 2004 and provides it to children free of charge.

However, since 2017, the outbreak of yellow fever has killed the score and afflicted many others.

Dr. Lilwanumohamed, executive chairman of the Bauchi Primary Health Care Development Agency, said many parents cannot vaccinate their children.

“We now do a small survey and find that half of the people we sampled were not vaccinated,” said Lilwanu Mohammed. “The sampled children were under 5 years old and half were unvaccinated.”

Traditional medicine

Indifference between parents is the main challenge to vaccines, but instead, like Ahmadu Mohammad, who claims that some Nigerians have been cured of yellow fever by visiting traditional healers in the community. Choose traditional medicine.

Mohammad said people use it with herbal medicine and rarely go to the hospital. He said the treatment would put the syringe in the fire and when the needle turned red, the herbologist prayed before sticking the syringe in his chest. He said it was a gift God gave to herbal doctors.

Aisha Luffy is an immunologist in the city of Jos and believes that more Nigerians will be happy to receive a lifelong yellow fever vaccine.

“Now there is a lot of awareness and almost everyone is aware of vaccinations, so we can see that in the traditional ones, only a few want the traditional ones,” Rufy said. Says.

The Federal Government of Nigeria plans to launch a large-scale yellow fever vaccination campaign in five high-risk yellow fever states starting mid-January.

Credit: Voice of America (VOA)