Medical humanitarian organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has said measles killed at least 24 children in Zurmi local government and other parts of Zamfara State between March and June 2025.
MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, in an attempt to curtail spread of the disease, has launched a vaccination campaign in the local government.
According to MSF, most of the children who died of the disease were under the age of five and were unvaccinated against the killer disease.
The campaign, designed to last for six days, targets children aged six months to five years in a bid to contain the fast-spreading disease and curb further deaths.
MSF’s head of mission, Abdullahi Mohamed Ali, said, “This is a race against time. Children in Zurmi are facing a double crisis of disease and hunger.”
Ali explained that the vaccination drive followed a surge of over 1,600 suspected measles cases reported across all 11 wards of Zurmi as of early May this year, exceeding epidemic thresholds.
He said many of the infected children were also suffering from other illnesses like malaria and eye infections, worsened by widespread malnutrition. The death rate currently stands at 1.2%.
He said MSF was deploying both fixed vaccination points and mobile teams to reach hard-to-access communities such as Dauran, Birnin Tsaba, Mayasa Kuturu and Rukudawa, areas where healthcare access remains severely limited.
The head of mission said the campaign aims to vaccinate at least 95% of the eligible children, up from the 59% reached in a previous June campaign hampered by vaccine shortages and insecurity.
He urged Zamfara and federal health authorities, alongside humanitarian actors, to bolster support for the emergency response and ensure no child is left behind in the fight against measles and hunger.
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