NIGERIA: Cholera outbreak kills up to 100 in Benue State

ABUJA, 25 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - The Nigerian government has rushed emergency help to Benue State in southeastern Nigeria to deal with an outbreak of cholera in the state capital Makurdi that has caused numerous deaths.

A senior government official said at least seven people had died from cholera in Makurdi over the past two weeks but local residents said the true death toll appeared to be nearer 100.

Benue State Governor George Akuma visited the worst-hit Wadata district of the city on Monday and declared free treatment for hundreds of people in hospital because of the epidemic.

Cholera is an acute intestinal infection usually caused by poor sanitation and dirty drinking water. It causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting that leads to dehydration of the body and can prove fatal unless treated quickly.

Many residents of Makurdi depend on the River Benue, which flows through the city, for drinking water.

Government emergency health teams have concentrated on quick, oral re-hydration therapy to save lives.

They are also supplying purified drinking water in tanker trucks to the affected communities to break the transmission cycle.

Mike Iduma, Benue state commissioner for health, said the authorities had so far confirmed only seven deaths from cholera, but he acknowledged that many more deaths from the epidemic may not have been officially reported.

Accounts from residents in the affected districts of Makurdi pointed to a death toll nearer 100.

Murtala Tanko, a Muslim undertaker in the mainly Islamic Wadata district of the city, said he had buried more than 90 people who died from cholera in the past two weeks.

New outbreaks of cholera and some deaths from the disease have also been reported in the Gwer West and Apa local council areas, just outside the state capital.

Despite Nigeria's oil wealth, more than 70 percent of the country's 126 million people live below the poverty line and cholera outbreaks are common in poor urban areas which lack proper sanitation and clean drinking water.

In February, at least 46 people died of cholera in Kusa, a village in Oyo state in southwestern Nigeria, which is mainly populated by quarry workers and self-employed gold miners.

[ENDS]