The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said that the nation recorded the highest number of cholera cases in the world last year.
According to the agency’s data made available to the media, Nigeria reported 111,062 cases of the disease, with 3,604 deaths were recorded across 34 states of the Federation.
The states in question are Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Ekiti, Enugu, FCT, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, Rivers and Zamfara.
The report showed that children between the age of 5 to 14 years were the most affected age group for males and females. Also, of all suspected cases, 50 per cent were males and 50 per cent were females.
Four states – Bauchi (19,558 cases), Jigawa (15,141 cases) Kano (12,116 cases), and Zamfara (11,931 cases) account for 53 per cent of all cumulative cases. Eleven Local Government Areas (LGAs) across five states: Bauchi (4), Zamfara (4), Kano (1), Katsina (1) and Borno (1), reported more than 1,000 cases each.
At the Prevent Epidemics Journalism Award in Abuja, organised by the Nigeria Health Watch, the Director-General of the NCDC, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, said: “There are two lessons we can learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. One is that health is wealth; this is because the pandemic affected livelihoods and economies of countries across the world. The second lesson is that prevention is truly better than cure.
“While we have made a lot of progress in areas that are related to response, we did not make significant gains in the areas related to preparedness. The lesson here is we cannot always wait to have the knife pointed at our eyes before we take action. We have to do everything that we can do to prevent the knife from coming close to avoid losing our eyes.
“We will like more or equivalent attention (investment) to be given to the other conditions as well affecting Nigerian citizens like cholera.”
