Measles surveillance in Nigeria: enough information for policy making?

Data collected through routine surveillance of measles cases will ideally be used to make policy decisions for vaccination programs. Nigeria has recently implemented a passive surveillance system for measles. Results indicate increasing measles cases in Southwest Nigeria but this may or may not indicate a true increase in measles cases. Only very basic assessments of the logistics of the system have been conducted. Further investigations of the quality of the data and performance of reporting sites must be made to determine the reliability of information being generated by the surveillance system before conclusions can be drawn.