In Niger, the cholera epidemic has now spread throughout the country.
The death toll is rising and contact cases are increasing exponentially. Since yesterday, the country has recorded a new toll of 35 people who have died of cholera and 845 cases of contamination according to the country’s health authorities.
Faced with this rapid spread of the disease “teams of free care for all cases of disease are positioned in different sites,” said Niger’s Minister of Public Health, Dr. Idi Illiassou Maïnassara.
The capital Niamey, affected in turn, is hosting two isolation sites for children and adults affected by cholera. The health authorities are also sensitising the population to respect the rules of hygiene, especially after the heavy rains of the last few days.
For its part, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has donated medicines and equipment worth over 172 million CFA francs to help Niger control the disease.
The donation includes adapted beds, plastic buckets, treatment sheets, notebooks, pens and consultation registers, lamps, water tanks and rolls of plastic sheeting for treatment centres.
On 9 August, the Minister of Health announced the first cases in the regions of Maradi (south-east), Zinder (centre-south) and Dosso (south-west). These regions border neighbouring Nigeria, where the epidemic has been raging for several months.
In 2018, Niger was already hit by a cholera epidemic which had caused 78 deaths out of 3,824 recorded cases.
CD/lb/abj/APA