Ogun State ministry of health has confirmed that in the last month, 236 cases of Cholera and 12 deaths have been recorded in the state.
The state had on September 17, 2023, alerted residents of Ijebu North Local Government Area of cholera outbreak, saying three deaths had already been recorded.
According to report, the disease later spread to Abeokuta North and Abeokuta South LGs in the state capital.
Giving updates of the outbreak, the Commissioner for Health, Dr Tomi Coker, in Abeokuta, on Thursday, October 19, confirmed 12 death out of about 236 cases recorded.
Coker noted that the disease cause is linked to “high level of open defecation, poor waste management and poor water source.”
She said, “Unfortunately, we have a report of 236 cases and there has been at least about 12 deaths, which brings us to a fatality rate of 44.6 per cent.
“This is slightly high for a state like ours because we are educated. And from what we found out that’s actually promoting the cholera outbreak is the fact that there’s a high level of open defecation in Ogun State.
“It started in Ijebu North Local Government where we have 217 cases, but now we have more reports. We had some from Abeokuta North last week. We have two reports from Abeokuta South.”
To curtail the outbreak, Coker said the government had started chlorinating wells in Ijebu North, the LG worst hit by the disease.
She said the Ministry of Health was also collaborating with the Ministry of Environment and other relevant ministries, departments, and agencies to contain the spread of the disease.
“It is unfortunate that our people still engage in open defecation, unaware that fecal materials enter shallow wells, which many of them use as water sources. For instance, in Ijebu-North Local Government, we found 52 shallow wells and microbiological testing revealed that 75 per cent of these wells had evidence of fecal contamination with coliform bacteria,” she added
