The Kaduna State Commissioner for Health, Dr Amina Muhammed-Baloni, has said cholera claimed about 175 lives across the 23 Local Government Areas of the state last year.
The commissioner disclosed this while receiving cholera testing equipments donated by the World Health Organisation to the state in Kaduna on Thursday.
The items donated included sero-type reagents among others for the zonal cholera laboratory located at the late Yusuf Dantsofo Memorial Hospital, Tudun-Wada, in the state capital.
Speaking to journalists shortly after receiving the items, Muhammed-Baloni, said the state witnessed high cases of cholera in 2021 with a casualty figure of 175.
The commissioner said that the 23 local government areas in the state recorded the disease, adding that the WHO donation would go a long way in enhancing the containment of the disease.
Muhammed-Baloni, represented by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Adamu Mohammed-Mansir, said, “As far the issue of cholera was concerned in 2021, virtually all the local government areas had cases of cholera and the casualties were quite a number.
“So this effort by the World Health Organisation, concerned about the health matters around the world, came at the right time because this will enhance our capability to not only do the rapid diagnostic test but also to know the type of cholera in the state. We thank WHO for the support to Kaduna State. We recorded some deaths from the cholera epidemics. One hundred and seventy five people died from the disease in the state.”
Earlier, the acting state Coordinator of WHO, Dr Dauda Madubu, said that the donated items became imperative because the world health body was concerned about the outbreak of the disease in the state in particular and the country in general.
Madubu noted that after the COVID-19 pandemic, cholera posed a greater challenge to not only the state, but the entire country hence the need to urgently tackle the disease.
He said, “We are here to hand over some items that are donated by the WHO to support the containment of the outbreaks of cholera in the state. The country is facing a lot of outbreaks of the disease since 2020 when we had the outbreak of the COVID-19 and in 2021. Almost all the 23 LGAs had confirmed cases of cholera and we had challenges in terms of confirming the suspected cases.
“That was why the WHO thought that we should increase the capacity of each of the LGAs so that we would be able to do rapid diagnosis testing and then to confirm the cases at the Yusuf Dantsofo Laboratory which is going be a confirmation centre.’’
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