Nigeria Records 151 Deaths from Meningitis Epidemic 

–         NCDC, states to scale up interventions 

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja 

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) has said that the country recorded a total of 151 deaths as a result of Cerebrospinal Meningitis.

It said that 23 states reported suspected meningitis cases from epidemic week 40 of 2024 to epidemic week 12, 2025. 

These states are Adamawa, Akwa-Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Fct, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Sokoto and Yobe.

NCDC said that going forward, it will maintain communication with and support to states for data reporting and response continuing advocacy to state governments to fund CSM IAP for ownership and sustainability.

The centre said it will continue distributing response commodities across states, build capacity for sample collection, transportation, laboratory diagnosis and data management and scale up risk communications.

According to the epidemiological report for week 12 published by NCDC, “As at 23rd March 2025, a total of 1826 suspected cases with 151 deaths, with case fatality rate of 8.3 percent have been reported from 23 states in the current season.

The report said a total of 289 samples were collected from some of the reported suspected cases since the beginning of the season, with 126 confirmed (44% positivity rate).

It also showed that age group 5 -14 years remains most affected group while 60 percent of the total suspected case were male.

The report showed that 94 percent of all suspected cases are being reported from ten (10) states – Kebbi (881), Katsina (158), Jigawa (147), Yobe (109), Gombe (47), Sokoto (303), Borno (36), Adamawa (27), Oyo (23) and Bauchi (66).

In the same vein, 17 local government areas across 9 states reported more than ten suspected cases in the current CSM season., namely; Gwandu (313), Tambuwal (155), Aleiro (143), Katsina (69), Kankia (54), Sule-Tankarkar (29), Jega (61), Fune (28), Maiduguri (29), Jahun (15), Birnin kudu (13), Nafada (13), Nguru (53), Bauch (25), Gamawa (20), Taura (14), Sule-Tankarkar (30), Birnin kudu (13), Nafada (13) and Yola South (13).

According to the report of the National Multi-sectoral Cerebrospinal Meningitis (EOC) monitor and surveillance activities across states, 315 suspected cases were reported from 3 states (Kebbi, Sokoto and Yobe).

38 cases turned out positive while 14 deaths were recorded with case fatality rate of 4.4 percent. 

The report showed that there was 65 percent decrease in number of reported cases in epidemic -week 12 with 315 compared to cases reported in week 11 (418) cases.

NCDC listed some challenges facing efforts to combat the meningitis to include; inadequate trained personnel in states for case management, lack of CSM commodities some facilities – ceftriaxone, poor and inconsistent reporting from states, poor data quality.

Others are lack of active case search at Secondary and Tertiary facilities, late/non reporting from communities up to the states/national levels, poor health seeking behaviour due to (poor terrain, high cost of transportation to the treatment centres 

hard-to-reach communities), poor personal and community hygiene promotion.