Over 90,000 cases of cholera were recorded across Nigeria in 2021, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has said.
In a statement signed by its field officers, Hussein Amri and Abdulkareem Yakubu, the MSF, popularly known as doctors with borders, said that nearly all 36 states have reported cholera cases in 2021.
21st CENTURY CHRONICLE reports that the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control had in July reported more than 7,500 new cases every week.
The MSF said the majority of the cases were reported in Bauchi, Kano, Jigawa, Zamfara, Sokoto and Katsina, which were being plagued by conflict and violence, with thousands living in poor sanitary
conditions and poor drinking water.
“In Zamfara State, many patients arrive in a serious or critical condition, having delayed seeking treatment for fear of encountering violence or danger on the roads,” the MSF said.
It said its emergency teams were working alongside the Ministry of Health to bring the outbreak under control, adding that it has opened six cholera treatment centres across the region where over 20,000 patients have been treated so far.
“MSF teams were still admitting more than 100 patients daily at some points in August, underscoring the severity of the outbreak and the determination of patients to get treatment, however risky,” it said.
“Cholera has added to a complex web of medical and humanitarian vulnerabilities, coming on top of heightened insecurity, a chronic state of acute humanitarian and medical needs, and the direct and secondary impacts of COVID-19,” the statement quoted MSF country representative in Nigeria, Dr Simba Tirima, to have said.
