No confirmed case of Cholera-related death in Ebonyi community – Commissioner
By Chinwe Imo-Eze Onwosi
The Ebonyi State Commissioner for Health, Daniel Umezurike, has said there is no confirmed Cholera-related death or outbreak at Ndiegu Amagu community in the Ikwo Local Government Area of the state.
The commissioner stated this on Friday night while briefing journalists after an assessment visit to Ndiegu Amagu in the Ikwo council, where the outbreak was being reported.
He said when the outbreak was first reported early November, officials of the ministry, World Health Organisation, among other relevant agencies, visited the area.
“We carried out rapid diagnostic tests and all tested samples turned negative and also forwarded collected samples to the reference laboratory in Abuja,” he said.
The commissioner said that when the current ‘rumour’ outbreak broke, relevant officials were dispatched to the area and they interacted intensively with members of the community.
According to him , “We visited the area with the objectives of confirming the rumour, attending to the sick people among them, collecting and testing samples, and sensitising the people on the disease.”
Umezurike said his team saw the four persons suspected to be suffering from the disease with one saying that she defecated in morning and had not defeacated again since then and that it was not watery.
The commissioner said, “The other persons were admitted in a nearby health facility with one of them showing pregnancy symptoms while the other said that he has been on admission in the facility since for two days now.
“I assure that relevant health partners will be consistently monitoring development from the area we also ready to contain any emergency.
“We don’t want people to panic or link any death to cholera or such disease, because there is none presently in Ebonyi State.
“We can not also talk of death from the disease because you have to establish a cholera case first before you talk of death.”
