The proportion of children who received the third dose of the pentavalent vaccine (Penta 3) in Kwara has increased from 34.9 per cent in 2024 to 50.4 per cent in 2025–2026.

Nusirat Elelu, the executive secretary of the Kwara State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, disclosed this in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday.

Ms Elelu explained that the development is contained in a recent survey report released by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.

She described the latest survey findings as encouraging indicators of progress in child health across the state.

She added that the proportion of children aged 12 to 23 months who had received no vaccines declined from 48.1 per cent to 27.3 per cent within the period under review.

According to her, this reflects substantial progress in reaching more children with life-saving immunisation services.

The executive secretary explained that the pentavalent vaccine administered to children aged six, 10 and 14 weeks will protect them against five serious diseases, including diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

“This improvement in our pentavalent vaccine coverage underscores the Kwara government’s effort at improving child health.

“It further reaffirms the importance of routine immunisation in protecting children and promoting healthy development,” she said.

Ms Elelu quoted the survey as saying stunting declined from 40.8 per cent to 35.5 per cent; wasting reduced from 6.1 per cent to 3.5 per cent, while underweight prevalence dropped from 24.5 per cent to 14.8 per cent.

She noted that these improvements represented encouraging development in efforts to promote child survival, healthy growth and overall wellbeing in Kwara.

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“This is one of the greatest improvements in our nutrition indices recorded in Kwara in recent years,” she said.

She attributed the success to the state government’s investment in primary healthcare, particularly through support for nutrition-sensitive interventions and the biannual Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Week.

She reiterated the agency’s commitment to strengthening primary healthcare delivery through routine and outreach immunisation, community mobilisation, nutrition services and growth monitoring.

She enjoined parents and caregivers to sustain the gains by taking their children to the nearest primary healthcare centre for free routine immunisation.

Ms Elelu advised them to keep their immunisation cards up to date, participate in community outreach programmes, and ensure regular monitoring of their children’s growth.

(NAN)

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has explained that Ebola survivors may transmit the virus through sexual intercourse if it persists in their semen after recovery. In contrast, survivors who have met the criteria for discharge from treatment are not expected to transmit the virus through sweat or saliva.

Patrick Otim, programme area manager for emergency response at the WHO Regional Office for Africa, explained this in a video answering questions about the virus.

Mr Otim said male survivors should receive counselling on safer sex practices and access to condoms after discharge from treatment centres. He said they should undergo regular semen testing until they obtain two consecutive negative results.

“Ebola virus after recovery and for patients with what we call a viral persistence can be transmitted through sexual intercourse,” he said.

He explained that the virus could remain in certain parts of the body after clinical recovery, posing a risk of transmission through infected semen.

The WHO recommends that male survivors practise safer sex for 12 months in the absence of a semen-testing programme. Where testing is available, they should undergo regular testing until two consecutive negative results are obtained.

Sweat and saliva

Mr Otim said survivors who had recovered and been discharged from treatment centres could not transmit the virus through sweat or saliva because the virus would have been cleared from their blood.

He said patients were required to have two negative blood tests before discharge, adding that survivors who had met the discharge criteria could not transmit the virus through these fluids.

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However, he warned that people who were still actively ill could transmit Ebola through sweat and other bodily fluids.

Outbreak raises concerns

The explanation comes amid an ongoing Ebola outbreak involving the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Kenya.

Nigeria confirmed an imported case on 20 October. The patient, a 42-year-old Ugandan-born woman living in Abuja, was evacuated to Switzerland with her husband on 26 October.

Although the WHO said Nigeria had no active confirmed cases after the evacuation, health authorities continued monitoring contacts and implementing containment measures.

In the DRC, the outbreak has recorded 10,060 confirmed cases and 4,887 deaths, according to figures released on Tuesday by the country’s Ministry of Public Health.