Measles kill 112 children in Nigeria

No fewer than 112 children in the country have died of measles outbreak since 2015.

Also 22,667 suspected cases were recorded across the 36 states of the federation and Abuja in the year under review.

A consultant with the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Dr. Emmanuel Idoko, disclosed this, on Wednesday, in Abakaliki, at a one-day media orientation meeting on 2016 Measles Vaccination Campaign (MVC)

He described measles as a contagious disease that spread quickly from child to child, especially in crowded areas.

Idoko said children under nine months were the most vulnerable to measles and called on parents to ensure that their children were immunised against the disease.

Earlier, an immunization officer in the state Ministry of health, Mrs. Priscilla Odi, said that the country was embarking on a nation-wide mass vaccination of children against the killer disease.

She disclosed that the campaign would hold in all the 17 states in the southern part of the country from January 28, 2016 to February 1, 2016 with children between ages of 9-59 months expected to be immunised.

Odi noted that the aim of the exercise was to reduce child mortality in the country.