Enugu State’s health commissioner said this week that a suspected diphtheria case investigated at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital did not turn out to be diphtheria, easing concern in a state that has so far avoided an outbreak spreading through parts of northern Nigeria.
Commissioner George Ugwu said health authorities examined the case but could not confirm the diagnosis; the patient was instead suspected to have tonsillitis. “So far, there is no confirmed case of diphtheria in Enugu State,” Ugwu said, adding that the ministry remains vigilant and is taking steps to protect residents.
Ugwu said the state’s Public Health and Surveillance Unit is on alert for early detection of any suspected case, and urged residents to remain calm rather than spread unverified information. He asked anyone with fever, sore throat, difficulty swallowing, cough, breathing trouble, neck swelling or a grayish-white throat membrane to seek medical attention promptly, and called on healthcare workers to report suspected cases quickly while maintaining infection-control measures. He also urged parents to ensure children receive diphtheria-containing vaccines, including the pentavalent shot given in early infancy.
Nigeria’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded more than 10,000 confirmed diphtheria cases nationwide so far in 2026, the agency’s director-general, Idris, told reporters in Abuja, describing a persistent immunity gap rather than a single new outbreak. Eight northern states — Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Borno, Bauchi, Plateau, Sokoto and Zamfara — account for 98 percent of confirmed cases, with Kano remaining the epicenter. NCDC data shows roughly 68 percent of confirmed cases involve people who had never received a single dose of the diphtheria vaccine, with another 28 percent of unknown vaccination status, underscoring how thoroughly the outbreak is concentrated among unimmunized populations. The current wave traces back to December 2022, when the agency was first notified of suspected cases in Kano and Lagos states; by comparison, Nigeria recorded 15,273 confirmed cases and 872 deaths in 2025 alone, according to a World Health Organization regional assessment, with more than 95 percent of those cases concentrated in five states.
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Plateau state has emerged as a fresh flashpoint. Suspected cases there climbed past 300, with more than two dozen deaths, prompting authorities to order an indefinite closure of public and private schools across affected local government areas, including Jos North, Jos South, Bassa and Wase. Other heavily affected states, including Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Taraba and Gombe, have kept schools open despite mounting infections, a divergence public health commentators have pointed to as evidence of an uneven government response across the affected region.
Lagos, by contrast, has recorded only six confirmed cases and 53 suspected cases in 2026, a gap researchers attribute largely to significantly higher baseline immunization coverage in the state. Lagos Health Commissioner Akin Abayomi disclosed the figures last week during a briefing on the state’s diphtheria preparedness, crediting prompt diagnosis, aggressive contact tracing and sustained public messaging for keeping the caseload low even as the state continues to contend with unvaccinated children in dense urban communities.
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Diphtheria is a bacterial infection caused by Corynebacterium, which produces a toxin that can damage the nose, throat, tonsils, larynx, heart, nerves and kidneys. It spreads primarily through respiratory droplets but can also pass through infected sores, contaminated clothing and shared objects. The NCDC has identified insecurity, population displacement and cross-border movement as major obstacles preventing vaccinators from reaching hard-to-reach communities in the country’s north, where the routine three-dose pentavalent vaccination schedule has repeatedly failed to reach large numbers of children.
Enugu’s negative finding leaves it outside the list of states currently reporting confirmed transmission, though officials there say the surveillance system built in response to the wider national outbreak remains active.
