Cholera outbreak in Obubura community of Nigeria’s Cross River State has left about 60 people dead and 286 hospitalised.
This is barely a month after about 14 persons lost their lives respectively in Abi and Odukpani communities as a result of the same disease.
This has prompted residents of the community to call on the state government to urgently come to their aid.
There is an increasing rate of mortality across 14 wards in the area with over 200 infected persons while over 60 deaths have been recorded.
Though the cause of the disease is yet unknown, the community reportedly depends on a river as their only source of water for cooking, bathing, washing and drinking and may have been faeces-infested which may have triggered the outbreak.
Speaking on the development, the Cross River state commissioner for health, Dr Janet Ekpenyong, said that 286 cases were confirmed from Rapid Diagnosis Testing and advised the people to avoid self-medication.
Ekpenyong stated that 89 communities in Obubra out of which 51 were affected in constituency 1 and 2 active cases were reported, adding that the measures so far taken are capable of bringing the outbreak under control.
According to her, the State Coordinator of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Olatunde Yewande, the Director General of the Cross River State Primary Health Care Development Agency, (CRSPHCDA), Dr Abasi Offiong Amos as well as other health officials from the ministry have been dispatched to the affected communities.
Traditional ruler of the community, the Ohorodo I of Okum Kingdom, Ovan Robert, who frowned at the epidemic, called on the government to intervene by providing them potable water to check the outbreak.
