No fewer than 816 persons have been killed by cholera in 22 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) between January 1 and August 1, 2021.
There were 31,425 suspected cases across the country out of which 311 were confirmed during the same period.
The states that recorded the 816 deaths are Delta, Bayelsa, Cross River, Enugu, Kwara, Benue, Kogi, and Plateau.
Others are Zamfara, Gombe, Sokoto, Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Niger, Jigawa, Yobe, Adamawa, Katsina and Borno.
According to an epidemiological report by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), 27 percent of the suspected cases comprised children aged five to 14. It added that 51 percent were males and 49 percent, females.
NCDC further explained that since the beginning of the year, 709 samples were collected with positive cases as follows: 234 rapid diagnostic test (RDT) positive only; 77 culture-positive; 311 RDT and culture positive. The test positivity rate (TPR) for laboratory confirmation by culture was put at 25 percent.
It said there has been a decrease in the number of new cases in the last two weeks with Bauchi State recording 773; Niger, 183; Katsina, 120 and FCT, 64.
The agency said it had begun response activities in states to curtail the spread of the disease and manage identified cases.
”There is ongoing surveillance in all states through the routine integrated disease surveillance (IDRS) and response and event-based surveillance (EBS),” it explained in the report.
NCDC also said it was advocating hygiene promotion, provision of safe water, water chlorination, household disinfection, sensitisation on dangers of open defecation in high-risk communities as some ways to check the spread of the disease.
The agency added that it had supported testing of samples received from Benue, Niger, Plateau, Bauchi, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Katsina, Enugu, Adamawa and Bayelsa states as well as the FCT at its National Reference Laboratory (NRL) in Abuja.
