Story from Kenneth Afor, Lagos
According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), about 289 persons have lost their lives to Cholera between January and June 2021.
The Centre disclosed this in a statement on Monday, noting that the disease is currently ravaging eight states of the federation.
The disease centre listed the affected states as Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, Kano, Zamfara, Bayelsa and Kaduna.
According to NCDC, in the last one month, an increasing number of cholera cases has been reported in most of the aforementioned states, with 441 suspected cases and six deaths recorded in Plateau alone, last week.
The cholera outbreak in Bauchi last month has spread across nine districts in the state with the state capital, Bauchi, being the worst hit, Mohammed Maigoro, the state Health Commissioner said, in a report by African News in late May.
“So far, we have recorded 20 deaths and 322 cases from the cholera outbreak in nine local government areas of Bauchi in the past two weeks,” Mr Maigoro was quoted as saying, in the publication.
“The Bauchi metropolis has been worst affected, accounting for half of the fatalities and 147 out of the 322 reported cases,” he added.
The NCDC said between January and June 22, 2021, a total of 10,833 suspected cholera cases have been reported including 112 laboratory-confirmed cases.
But surprisingly, there has been a sharp drop in infections and deaths from COVID-19 since March.
Towards averting the risk of large outbreaks across states, NCDC said it has activated a multi-sectoral National Cholera Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), following an increase in the cases.
The Centre said, “The National EOC has been supporting states to ensure a coordinated, rapid and effective response to the ongoing outbreak. This includes the deployment of National Rapid Response Teams (RRT) to support the response at the state level, provision of medical and laboratory supplies, scale-up of risk communications amongst other activities.
“Additionally, the resources that have been developed as part of Nigeria’s COVID-19 response are being used to strengthen the response to the cholera outbreak. This includes the digitalisation of the national surveillance system, establishment of laboratories and treatment centres, training of health workers among others.”
Cholera is a bacterial disease causing severe diarrhoea and dehydration, usually spread in water.
There have been consistent outbreaks of the disease in Nigeria since the 1970s.
