Posted by Xinhua on
Cholera has broken out in the southwestern Nigerian states of Ogun and Lagos, leaving 23 people dead and 40 others hospitalized, Nigeria's The Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Cholera has broken out in the southwestern Nigerian states of Ogun and Lagos, leaving 23 people dead and 40 others hospitalized, Nigeria's The Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The epidemic was reported in Ilase Agbara, an Ogun state border town with Lagos, some 50 km from Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos.
Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Leke Pitan, however, told Xinhua "we are not aware about the epidemic yet but we have sent a monitoring team to go to the site and investigate."
The paper reported that the Ogun state government had directed the sealing up of dirty homes as a precautionary measure.
The victims were reported to have showed signs of vomiting, dysentery and stooling leading to dehydration to death.
Cholera is a water-borne disease and thrives in filthy environment and a lot of the environment in Africa's most populous nation is dirty and lacks portable water in many areas.
The paper quoted one of the cholera victims who lost his wife to the disease as saying "I did all I could initially and when it was getting out of hand I rushed her to a hospital but before we got there, she died."
Source: Xinhua