NIGERIA: 19 states comprising the northern part of Nigeria account for about 90 per cent of Cholera outbreaks in 2021. This was made known by the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) on its official website as it announced its 52-weeks data, which cut across December 27, 2021, through January 2, 2022.
NCDC added that the most affected states have records of poor sanitation and are affected by flooding and there is risk of a surge in the affected areas compared to other states with better sanitation records and zero flooding.
The affected states
The Cholera affected states include Bauchi, Jigawa, Kano, Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger, Borno, Maiduguri, and Adamawa State. Others include Kwara, Nasarawa, Kebbi, Benue, Sokoto, Gombe Jigawa, Katsina, Taraba, and Plateau state.
However, the following states are most affected by the pandemic; Bauchi has 19,558, Jigawa – 15,141, Kano – 12,116, and Zamfara with 11,931 cases of Cholera, NCDC added.
Also, NCDC revealed that 11 LGAs cut across Zamfara, Bauchi, Kano, Katsina and Borno, each has reported more than 1,000 cases of Cholera in 2021.
States without cases
As about 33 states and 435 local government areas are affected by the Cholera virus, there are only three free states without a single record of infection. These states are Anambra, Edo and Imo state, NCDC data revealed.
Country’s statistics
The December 2021 to January 2022 data which mark the end of the 2021 epidemiological cycle report indicate that 111,662 cases of Cholera were recorded in 2021.
NCDC also revealed that, in 2021 alone, more than 3,604 persons have died of Cholera related diseases. This shows that Nigeria in 2021 was most hit by cholera infections.
“The 2021 Cholera outbreak, with a higher case fatality rate (3.2 percent) than the previous four years, is worsened by the attention focused on the coronavirus, by the government and the neglect suffered by other diseases including Lassa Fever,” NCDC confirmed.
What is Cholera?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.
WHO revealed that researchers have estimated that every year, there are roughly 1.3 to 4.0 million cases and 21,000 to 143,000 deaths worldwide due to Cholera.
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