The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, says so far, 489 deaths have been confirmed in the 4,637 cases of cerebrospinal meningitis outbreak across some states recorded as at April 10.

The ministry had announced 328 deaths recorded on Friday.

The minister disclosed the current figure during an emergency meeting of Northern State Governors and Traditional Council on Tuesday in Kaduna.

The meeting was convened by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar III, to tackle the outbreak of meningitis in five states of the Northern region.

The minister said among the cases, 171 were confirmed to be the Type C of meningitis with Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina, Niger and Kebbi states most affected.

He said so far 823,000 doses of conjugated type C had been delivered to the Federal Government, the UK government while UNICEF had delivered over one million Type A of the vaccines.

The Federal Ministry of Health in response to the cerebrospinal meningitis outbreak across some states in the country has issued a public advisory note on how to curtail the spread of the disease and advised Nigerians to remain calm as the ministry is working to put an end to the epidemic.

Mr. Adewole a professor said the Federal Government would spend over one billion dollars to procure vaccines to eradicate meningitis in the five most affected states in the Northern region.

“Federal needed $1,087 billion to procure vaccines and administer on some 21 million persons against the meningitis in the affected states,” he said.

He said the FG had collaborated with the state governments and International Development Partners to tackle to the outbreak in some 26 states so far affected in the country.

The minister said the vaccines were enough to tackle the outbreak in the most affected states.

He appealed to the traditional rulers in the region to be more proactive with media and other forms of campaigns to sensitise people on the needed for good hygiene and ventilation as well as avoid over-crowding in their homes.

Mr. Adewole, however, appealed to States Governments to increase their funding of the health sector to address the health challenges in the region.

He urged the governors to invest more funds to revitalise the health system in the northern states to tackle health challenges.

The Minister explained that the country needed to increase its funding from the $85 million to $378 million by 2025 to be able to meet up with the health challenges.

He said the federal government had embarked on upgrading some 10,000 primary health centres

Adewole also urged state governments to tackle corruption among state officials .

“You must stop corruption, when funds are released, utilise the funds properly by tracking and proper monitoring,” he said.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum and governor of Zamfara State, Abdulazeez Yari, said the state was worse hit by the meningitis do lack of information for early detection.

He said the state had confirmed 216 deaths out of the 2,350 cases recorded in the state since the disease broke out.

Mr. Yari said the state had received 45,000 doses of vaccines and so far no new case had been detected since the last three days.

He said a high powered committee had been established by the governors and the traditional rulers to brief President Muhammadu Buhari on the measures being taken to stop the scourge in the region.

Representatives of WHO, UNICEF, DIFD, NEMA are among others attended the event.

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