How bad is Cholera in Nigeria this year?
According to the Nigerian Center for Disease Control, over 3,600 deaths, Cholera killed more Nigerians than Covid-19 in 2021. Since the Covid-19 cases started dwindling a lot of Nigerians probably stopped paying attention to updates from the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC).
Well, there’s a lingering concern about Cholera that we all need to pay rapt attention to. Cholera is an endemic in Nigeria that becomes prevalent during the rainy season. We can say it is a seasonal disease in Nigeria and mostly breeds in abysmal sanitation areas.
Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease caused by Vibrio cholera, a gramme-negative rod-shaped bacterium.
In the latest update provided by the NCDC in its Cholera situation weekly epidemiological report, a total of 19,228 suspected cases of Cholera have been recorded in 2022 and 466 deaths have been recorded in 2022. These are very high numbers when you think about it.
Most of the major cases of the endemic have been recorded in the Northern part of Nigeria but there have been suspected cases in 31 of the 36 states in Nigeria. In the report for one of the months of this year, there were over 4000 suspected cases in Borno State alone. Yobe, Gombe, and Sokoto States also recorded over 80 suspected cases in that month.
The NCDC will continue to monitor the cases and provide updates till the end of the year. According to the World Health Organization, there are currently three pre-qualified oral vaccines for Cholera. All three vaccines will require two doses for full protection from the disease. There must be a minimum of two weeks delay between each dose of these vaccines. A mix of life, killed and conjugated vaccines are in development that has the potential of providing longer-term protection with easier-to-administer schedules
#STATEAFFAIRS is a segment that gives you a quick rundown of various political and state issues as they happen in the most simple, subtle language. In this edition, we are looking at the latest NCDC update on Cholera.
