[News] NCDC records 63 deaths in one week from suspected cholera cases as death toll rises to over 2,000

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said Cholera claimed 63 lives in the past week in 10 states across Nigeria.

The agency made this revelation in its epidemiological report for week 33 accounting for infections recorded from August 16 to 22, which was released on Monday, August 30.

Katsina recorded the highest number of deaths for the reporting week with 19 deaths, followed by Bauchi with 16, while Niger recorded 7. Other states that recorded fatalities are Zamfara (6), Jigawa (4), Sokoto (4), Borno (4), Yobe (1), Kano (1) and Adamawa (1).

The agency added that 11 states and the federal capital territory (FCT) reported 3,098 additional suspected cases of cholera infections for the reporting week.

According to the report, 58,698 suspected cases have also been recorded in the country since the beginning of the year, with 2,035 deaths.

The report reads: “In the reporting week, 12 states reported 3,098 suspected cases – Bauchi (1,145), Katsina (691), Zamfara (454), Yobe (216), Sokoto (196), Jigawa (187), Kano (80), Niger (79), Borno (30), FCT (11), Adamawa (6) and Kebbi (3).

“Of this, there were 35 RDT confirmed cases from Katsina (14), Yobe (7), Adamawa (6), Zamfara (4), Borno (2), Jigawa (1) and FCT (1).

“In addition, there were 63 deaths, from Katsina (19), Bauchi (16), Niger (7), Zamfara (6), Jigawa (4), Sokoto (4), Borno (4), Yobe (1), Kano (1) and Adamawa (1) states.”

As part of its plans to curtail the rise of infections, the NCDC said it would “continue monitoring epidemiological trends to guide ICG requests for planned vaccination campaigns, plan training of state laboratory scientists on sample collection and analysis” along with a “continued follow-up with states for updates on risk communication.”