No fewer than 40 persons have died out of about 1,000 people reported to have been diagnosed with cholera in 17 local government areas of Niger State.
A Deputy Director in the State Ministry of Health and Hospital Services, Dr Patrick Gimba confirmed this to the Nigerian Tribune during an exclusive interview on Tuesday in Minna.
He said: “Yes, we are experiencing an outbreak of cholera, while some people called it gastroenteritis.”
Speaking further, he explained that the state is “doing a lot of things and one of the things is that as soon as there is an outbreak, be it cholera or Covid-19, or anything in form of an outbreak, first of all, we have to open Public Health Emergency Operation Centre.
“This is where we communicate with all the various Local Government Areas (LGAs) because in each LGA, we have what we called the rapid response team in each of the LGAs.
“And luckily for us, the LGAs affected with this outbreak are just 17 LGAs in the state out of the 25 LGAs in Niger State. And we are in touch with the disease response team in which the Disease Surveillance Officer is a very strategic member of that team.”
Dr Gimba explained that every year there is an outbreak of cholera because of the rainy season, pointing out that cholera is typically a water-borne disease.
“So, we have had over 1,000 cases. I told you they were 17 local governments but at the moment in some local government areas where there has not been community transmission or that the transmission has stopped.
“I can tell you that for a while or for about two weeks now, there has not been any case from Gurara, Tafa, Magama and Lapai local government areas,” he said.
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