Diphtheria: Virologist Reveals Steps To Manage Disease

A consultant virologist, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, has called for improvement of laboratory diagnosis for effective/prompt detection of the diphtheria disease and appropriate treatment.

Tomori, also the Chairman of Biovaccines Nig. Ltd., made the call on Tuesday in Lagos.

There was a recent diphtheria outbreak at King’s College Annex, Lagos that led to the demise of one of the affected students, while other affected ones were taken to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) for treatment.

It also recalls that reports about the disease in the country started sometime in November/December 2024.

Diphtheria is a bacterial infection caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae. It is a contagious disease that can spread quickly through contact with an affected person.

Tomori said that diagnostic services remained the cornerstone for accurate disease detection, effective treatment planning, and continuous monitoring and improvement of patient outcomes.

The virologist identified improved laboratory diagnosis as key to prompt detection of diphtheria cases, for immediate precautions and treatment.

He frowned at situations where a patient would be diagnosed and treated for malaria, instead of diphtheria, due to poor standard laboratory apparatus, saying that such acts might result to more fatal outcome for the patient.

According to him, improved diagnostic services are crucial for enhancing efficiency, eliminating service duplication, and ensuring the optimal utilisation of resources.
He said that through this approach, the country could easily curb the spread of diphtheria disease.

“The first step to effective management of the diphtheria disease is to improve the laboratory diagnosis, because if you cannot even diagnose that a case is diphtheria, you will not know what to treat for. Improve the laboratory diagnosis, so that when these children come in with their symptoms, you know immediately if the case is diphtheria or not.

“If it is diphtheria, then, you take the normal precautions; isolate the cases, treat them and go back to where the patient is coming from – what do we need to do in terms of sanitation and hygiene practices? That’s why the laboratory becomes very important; the lab immediately tells you that; of all these symptoms they are showing – is it malaria, diarrhea or diphtheria.

“This implies that there will be no waste of resources, misdiagnosis or mistreatment where malaria will be treated instead of diphtheria,” Tomori said.

He decried that the majority of the children were not getting the right routine vaccination still, which remained the reason why the country would continue to have outbreaks of those vaccine-preventable diseases like diphtheria.

Tomori, therefore, urged scaling up of the routine vaccination exercise to ensure that every child got the polio and Diphtheria-Tetanus-Pertussis (DPT) vaccine before the age of nine years.

He advised that the country should target 100 per cent vaccination coverage, as recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO). According to him, the slogan that “No child should be left behind”, should be maintained such that every child must be vaccinated.

“The country can resolve to maintain the slogan: “no child should be left behind” and go back to ensure 100 per cent vaccination coverage, where no child will be left unvaccinated. That is the only way to prevent outbreak of those vaccine-preventable diseases like diphtheria,” he said.

NAN

Diphtheria: Virologist Reveals Steps To Manage Disease is first published on The Whistler Newspaper