Cholera: 595 People Killed In Jigawa State In 2021

The Ministry of Health in Jigawa State has confirmed that 595 people have died from the 21,877 cholera cases that had been recorded in the state in 2021. Salisu Mua’zu, the permanent secretary of the ministry, disclosed this information during a press briefing on Wednesday.

“Cholera outbreak is 100 percent associated with the environment or personal hygiene, it is surprising that the state has achieved a great fate in the provision of access to improve water source but cholera has claimed many lives.”

He said to prevent the high mortality rate recorded from the disease last year, his ministry has set up a response to reduce the number of deaths from the disease in 2022. According to him, “We have a team and we are working immediately when it is the rainy season the team will swift into action in trying to prevent the outbreak through sensitisation of communities and other key stakeholders to prevent reoccurrence of the outbreak.”

Mr. Mua’zu also disclosed that in 2021, the state had vaccinated 946,325 and 904, 169 people in the Birnin Kudu, Dutse and Hadejia local government areas against the disease. “The state vaccinated 1,720,742 and 1,782,026 children under five years in June and July respectively for routine childhood diseases in 2021.”

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As of November 21, 2021, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has disclosed that Nigeria has recorded a total of 3,566 deaths and 103,589 suspected cholera cases across 32 states of the federation and the FCT – a 3.4 per cent Case Fatality Ratio. According to the centre, four states- Bauchi (19,470 cases), Jigawa (13,293 cases) Kano (12,116 cases), and Zamfara (11.918 cases) account for 55 per cent of all cumulative cases. While the state struggled to contain a cholera outbreak in 2021, the state has recorded an impressive stride in its emergency transport scheme, which is aimed at transporting pregnant women in hard-to-reach communities to a healthcare facility.

Mr. Mu’azu said the state had no pregnancy-related death among the beneficiaries of the programme. He added that the ministry had spent over N8.7 million on the scheme in 2021 and engaged the services of 600 drivers.

“The free maternal newborn and child health services programme was operated in 23 health facilities of the state, with a total of 1,348122 persons accessing free health services through the programme and N751,212,291 was spent in the programme.”