The administration of Kuje Area Council at the weekend immunised over 5,000 inmates at the Kuje Prison against meningitis out­break.
Chairman of the Council, Abdullahi Galadima, who was represented by the Vice Chair­man, Samuel Duda during the immunisation exercise said the administering of the vaccines would help in stopping the es­calation of the disease.
Galadima said meningitis was spreading fast in commu­nities with over-crowded areas and places without proper ven­tilation which the prison is not exempted.
The Deputy Comptroller of Prisons, in charge of Kuje Prisons, Akilu Abdullahi said the vaccination would assist in fighting the disease among the inmates.
Abdullahi thanked the chairman of the area council for the intervention, saying the gesture would go a long way to enhance the immunity of pris­on inmates against the deadly meningitis disease.
The World Health Organisa­tion [WHO] recently assisted Nigeria with a special vac­cine to contain the outbreak of Type C meningitis, a new strain of the disease which was first discovered in the country in 2013.
It was gathered from health workers of Kuje Area Council that the team which visited the prison went with the new World Health Organisation [WHO] vaccines, which does not only prevent the spread of the disease but slows down the process of development of the virus in already infected patients.
Head of Health Department, Kuje Area Council, Dr. Veron­ica Yama, on her part said that Kuje Area Council donated the vaccines administered on the inmates to facilitate the ex­ercise in collaboration with the Nigeria Prison Service.
She advised people to pro­vide better ventilation in their homes and avoid crowded en­vironment saying that the dis­ease thrives more in crowded places where the ventilation is poor.-The Authority