By Kabiru Dogon Daji
Birnin Kebbi
The situation has worsened over the weekend as death toll hits 20 in Ngaski Local Government Area of Kebbi State following an outbreak of Gastro-intitis (cholera) that ravaged four villages of the council for barely two weeks ago.
Blueprint over the weekend gathered that though, the situation was put under control in joint efforts between the Ngaski local government, wealthy individuals and World Health Organization (WHO), a number of infected persons were still receiving medical attention at the Birnin-Yauri and Kimo Primary Health Centers.
The officer in charge of Kimo Primary Health Center, Ibrahim Abdullahi Warra, told our correspondent that over 200 patients were admitted while three died afterwards.
He attributed the outbreak to be as a result of stream water consumed by the habitants. “We had to launch a door to door sanitization campaign to ensure that people stopped drinking water from the stream or alternatively sterilized them before consumption, and that has yielded a positive result,” he said.
Ibrahim, appealed to the state government to provide the hospital with equipments and adequate personnel to man it. “Go round and see what is happening, we have only four beds and no single mattress is provided here, so all the over 200 patients were laying on the bare floor before we discharged them,” he said.
Similarly, the Councillor representing Kimo/Birnin ward of Ngaski local government Musa D. Labbo, said the record before him was that over 20 people died in Kimo village because they were not fortunate to be taken to the hospital. “I attended over 15 funerals but those that died in hospital were only four,” he said.
The Chairman of Ngaski local government Alhaji Mahmud Muhammed Warra, said the council had since procured and distributed drugs to the affected areas while disclosing that four villages, Kimo, Mararaba, Kumbuwa and Kwanono were the endemic areas.
According to him the council had provided potable drinking water in all the four villages but wondered why they drank from a stream, which he said was responsible for the outbreak that spread to the neighbouring villages since it is an airborne disease.
