A fire outbreak has destroyed the cold storage facility of the Ebonyi State Ministry of Health, wiping out vaccines and critical medical equipment valued at hundreds of millions of naira.
The incident occurred in the early hours of Friday at Block 5, Centenary City in Abakaliki, dealing a major blow to the state’s immunisation infrastructure.
During an on-the-spot assessment, the State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Moses Ekuma, lamented the scale of the destruction, noting that the facility housed essential immunisation materials and solar-powered systems used for preserving vaccines.
Items lost in the blaze include vaccines, vaccine carriers, cold-chain boxes, laptops, official documents, five refrigerators, two solar-powered refrigerators, as well as 45 solar batteries and inverters. Hospital beds and mattresses supplied by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency for distribution to Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Intervention local government areas were also destroyed.
Ekuma expressed relief that no lives were lost and commended officials of the State Ministry of Power and Energy, firefighters, and security agencies for their swift response, which helped contain the fire and prevent it from spreading.
He disclosed that vaccines such as BCG, pentavalent, and HPV stored in the facility were completely destroyed.
The commissioner said the cause of the fire remains unknown, revealing that the facility had been without public electricity for about five days, while its alternative solar power system was also not functional at the time. He added that efforts had been made to restore power, with the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company contacted, while the solar engineer responsible for maintenance was reportedly out of town before the incident.
Ekuma announced the constitution of a committee to investigate the cause of the fire and recommend preventive measures. He also directed that alternative office arrangements be made for staff of the affected Immunisation Unit, acknowledging that the incident has significantly disrupted operations and damaged parts of the building. Structural experts are expected to assess the full extent of the damage.
The Officer in Charge of Operations at the State Fire Service, Frank Oka Ota, said his team received a distress call at about 5:18 a.m. and responded promptly, describing the fire as intense. He credited improved response capacity to the provision of two new fire service trucks by Governor Francis Nwifuru but called for the recruitment of more personnel to strengthen emergency response.
The incident has sparked renewed concerns over infrastructure resilience and the protection of critical medical supplies essential for effective public health delivery in the state.
