by Olatunji Saliu
ABUJA, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- A senior official in charge of disease control has called for concerted efforts against cholera as it continues to spread across the country.
At a press conference in Abuja, capital of Nigeria, Monday, Chikwe Ihekweazu, head of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), said a total of 816 cholera-related deaths have been recorded from 22 states and the Federal Capital Territory across Nigeria since January.
There have so far been 31,425 suspected cases of cholera, with 311 confirmed ones, he said.
"We are faced with a national crisis of cholera in our country. You may not hear about this a lot because the people that cholera infects and affects are the poorest people in our country," said Ihekweazu. "This is a national crisis. Cases are escalating, we are chasing after them."
Cholera is a highly virulent disease characterized in its most severe form by a sudden onset of acute watery diarrhea that can lead to death.
Ihekweazu said this cholera outbreak in Nigeria has been exacerbated by poor access to clean water, open defecation, poor sanitation and hygiene, saying there is an urgent need for states to strengthen the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) scheme of the federal government.
Following an increase in the number of cholera cases in the country, the NCDC activated a national Cholera Emergency Operations Center on June 22, with an aim to support the most affected states and provide states with commodities for case management and laboratory diagnosis, materials for risk communications, and response guidelines.
The outbreak of cholera in Nigeria has remained persistent, occurring annually mostly during the rainy season and more often in areas with poor sanitation, overcrowding, lack of clean food and water, and areas where open defecation is a common practice.
"Cholera is not a medical challenge," Ihekweazu said, noting that the disease spreads rapidly as a problem of water, hygiene, and sanitation. "As long as we do not provide clean water to our people... As long as people are defecating openly upstream and drinking the same water from the stream downstream a few kilometers away."
To stem the tide of cholera infection in the northeastern state of Bauchi, where health authorities recorded a high number of cases, the government held a reactive Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV) campaign between July 24 and 28 only in that part of the country.
A total of 1.5 million doses of the OCV were administered during the exercise.
"For cholera control, the most important thing is not the vaccine; it is around water, hygiene, and sanitation. That is what we have always used to control cholera epidemics," said Faisal Shuaib, the executive director of Nigeria's National Primary Health Care Development Agency, which coordinates vaccination in the country.
Health Minister Osagie Ehanire said at the same press conference Monday that a multi-sectoral committee has been set up by the government to address the root causes of the disease.
"We hope that with that committee, we can address this cholera and other water-borne diseases at the very root and eliminate them from the threat that we face," said Ehanire.
On Nov. 20, 2019, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari signed an executive order on WASH, committed to ending open defecation throughout the country by 2025 in consonance with the commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
While signing the document, Buhari also declared a state of emergency on Nigeria's water supply, sanitation and hygiene sector, saying the action will reduce the high prevalence of water-borne diseases which caused preventable deaths in different parts of the country.
In 2018 alone, the NCDC confirmed more than 16,000 cholera-related cases across the country. Enditem
