Referral challenge hits bid to contain cholera in Nigeria’s northeast

Efforts to contain a cholera outbreak in northeast Nigeria that has struck more than 1 000 people housed in camps for those who fled Boko Haram are being hampered by the lack of a referral system to identify new cases, a United Nations official said.

Health officials in Borno, the northeastern state at the epicentre of the eight-year Islamist militant insurgency and the disease outbreak, said on Tuesday it had 1 626 suspected cholera cases as of September 11.

Forty people had died, it said, up from the 23 reported by the UN on September 6.

At the internally displaced camp in Muna, UNICEF has a clinic set up for rapid screening tests.

Critical cases are moved to a treatment centre being handled by the state ministry of health and Medecins Sans Frontires.

Aside from the camp in Muna, Custom House, Ruwan Zafi and Bolori II have also reported cholera cases, and there have been
reports of outbreaks in the areas of Monguno and Dikwa, northeast and east of Maiduguri.

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection spread by contaminated food and water. It can be easily treated with oral rehydration solution if caught early but can kill within hours if left untreated.

The outbreak began late last month and aid workers had already warned that Nigeria’s rainy season could spread disease in already unsanitary displacement camps.

UNICEF specialist, sector co-ordinator, Souleymane Sow says new cases sprung up in the past week.

UNICEF said aid agencies have chlorinated water in camps and host communities to curb the outbreak and mobilised volunteers and local leaders to find suspected cases.

About 1.8 million people have abandoned their homes because of violence or food shortages during the conflict, UN agencies say.

– By REUTERS