Over 1.4 million Internally Displaced People (IDP) have been
confirmed living in cholera ‘hotspots’ in the Northeastern Nigeria, with 28
persons confirmed died from the outbreak, reports NaijaAgroNet.
As revealed by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) there
is growing concern for the health and wellbeing of 1.4 million displaced
people, including 350,000 children under the age of five, living in cholera ‘hotspots’
in northeast Nigeria.
The outbreak, UNICEF said, occurs as ongoing violence and
military efforts against insurgents in the region have displaced over 1.7
million people and left over 3.6 million without adequate access to basic water
services.
UNICEF
Deputy Representative in Nigeria, Pernille Ironside, confirmed this to NaijaAgroNet in a press statement
made available by the chief of communication, Doune Porter, an estimated 28 people have died from cholera, while
837 are suspected to have been infected with the disease, including at least
145 children under the age of five.
“The
outbreak was first identified in the Muna Garage camp for the displaced in
Maiduguri, the state capital of northeast Nigeria’s Borno state,” she said, and
has since spread to six other locations in the state.
She
reassured that UNICEF and partners have rapidly scaled up their response to the
cholera outbreak, as heavy rains multiply the risk of disease and malnutrition
for conflict affected children.
For Ironside, “Cholera is difficult for young children to
withstand at any time, but becomes a crisis for survival when their resilience
is already weakened by malnutrition, malaria and other waterborne diseases”
lamenting that “Cholera is one more threat amongst many that children in
northeast Nigeria are battling today in order to survive.”
NaijaAgroNet
gathered that a cholera preparedness plan has been in place since before the
rains began, even as religious leaders, community heads and local volunteers
have been mobilised to encourage good hygiene practices and help refer
suspected cases to health facilities.
“Water is chlorinated at access points in the camps and
across host communities in an effort to curb the spread of disease as the rainy
season continues,” Ironside said.
Since the outbreak was confirmed there has been a closely
coordinated water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and health rapid response,
driven by the Borno State Government with support from World Health
Organisation (WHO), UNICEF and international non-governmental organisations,
including the setup of a cholera treatment centre at the Muna Garage Camp.
NaijaAgroNet further
reports that as the impact of the rains is felt, UNICEF said, it also scaled up
nutrition and child health programmes across the three northeast Nigerian
states mostly affected by conflict.
“So far this year, UNICEF has treated over 110,000 children
suffering from severe acute malnutrition, distributed nearly 120,000 mosquito
nets and provided emergency primary health care services to over three million
people in these states. The response continues despite increased security
concerns, reduced access because of floods and a heavily damaged health system,”
UNICEF official confirmed.
NaijaAgroNet equally
reports that even in the face of a deadly cholera outbreak, the WASH sector
remains critically underfunded. To date, UNICEF has only received 49 per cent
of funding needed to provide two million people with access to clean water, one
of the main interventions that can protect children from deadly waterborne
diseases and offer some protection against the threat of malnutrition.