Gbenga Oloniniran
As the country continues to grapple with the cholera outbreak, which has spread to 30 states, the Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Jide Idris, on Wednesday, said the agency is considering declaring a state of emergency if cases recorded goes beyond the manageable threshold.
He revealed this in Lagos during the Adetokunbo Alakija Memorial Travel Medicine Lecture held at Civic Centre, Victoria Island, orgainised by the Nigerian Society of Travel Medicine.
He maintained that based on the data obtained from all the partners involved in the assessment if they look at the data and decide that the situation has exceeded a particular threshold, they can call it an emergency.
Idris said the agency was still awaiting reports from the investigation team.
“So when they come, when they bring the data, if it has gone beyond a particular threshold, we declare an emergency,” he maintained.
PUNCH Healthwise reports that as Nigeria battles a cholera outbreak, the World Health Organisation, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and the International Organisation for Migration held an emergency meeting in Lagos on Tuesday.
WHO, UNICEF convenes emergency meeting over Nigeria’s cholera outbreak – Healthwise (punchng.com)
The WHO Country Representative, Dr Walter Mulombo, disclosed this on his X handle.
The NCDC, in its recent report, said from January 1 to June 11, 2024, over 1,141 suspected and over 65 confirmed cases of cholera, resulting in over 30 deaths, have been reported from 96 LGAs in 30 states.
Amid this, the Lagos State Ministry of Health said it has recorded 350 suspected cases of cholera in 29 wards across multiple LGAs with 17 confirmed cases and 15 fatalities attributed to severe dehydration caused by delayed presentation.
Lagos govt confirms 17 cholera cases, 15 deaths in 29 wards – Healthwise (punchng.com)
After delivering his address on the theme: ‘Collaborative Platforms and Networks, Strengthening Travel Medicine in Nigeria,’ Idris, while responding to a question from our correspondent for an update on the cholera outbreak, said the agency has been conducting a risk assessment.
He said, “We have been tracking cholera cases and we are documenting them. For the last two or three weeks, the incidence shot up, with a rising number of deaths and that is why we started investigating and this is where Lagos State came in.”
He, however, warned that prevention and preparation were key to tackling such a disease outbreak.
“We must prepare; prevention means to create the facilities that you will need, the isolation centres, and look at the human resources you have,” the NCDC director added.
On her part, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s Special Adviser on Health, Kemi Ogunyemi, said cholera has much to do with the environment and that the Ministry of Health is working with environmental agencies to address the menace.
She urged people to also take individual responsibilities by maintaining personal hygiene.
“It’s all about the environment, it’s about water, it’s about what you eat, it’s about people defecating, and all that is flushed into the drainage system. It’s not just the Ministry of Health, we cannot work in isolation, and we are trying our best. We have programmes – the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene known as WASH. We are trying to get clean water into all (areas), we are looking at pipes that are broken, and the things that are not working, etc,” Ogunyemi said.
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