6 Dead, 51 Hospitalised Over Mysterious Outbreak in Kano Community
Hannatu Suleiman Abba
Not less than six people have died, with over fifty one confirmed six cases following a mysterious outbreak suspected to be Cholera in Koya Town in Minjibir Local Government Area of Kano State.
Arewa Agenda reports that the outbreak was first recorded on 6th May, 2021 following which casualties were recorded, leading to an alarm raised by the village dictrict head Mallam Suleiman Muhammad, due to the increasing rate of spread.
According to Mallam Suleiman, the town comprises of five villages in his domain which includes Koya cikin Gari, Koya Masallaci, Koya Gargare, Koya Babba and Koya Gandu karama.
He narrated that upon confirmation of the outbreak, he quickly informed the Local Government Chairman of Minjibir, Alhaji Sale Ado, when the numbers of victims admitted at the villages Primary Health Center (PHC) began to swell.
“The infectious disease control team at State and Local Government level came to the village aid on how to tackle the spread of the outbreak, evaluated necessary measures in place and refered all the victims to Minjibir General hospital for proper treatment.
Speaking on the development, a Staff at Minjibir General Hospital, Dr Bello Muhammad says, the result of the tests taken from victims have not yet been confirmed to be any known disease but has similarities with Cholera.
Arewa Agenda confirms that the Infectious Disease Control has taken the sample of their diarrhea for proper investigation. Additionally, the have fumigated the Community with medical disinfectant in order to curtail further spread.
Findings reveal that most of the reported cases are women and children.
“As we can say, the reported cases are 51, 6 people lost their lives, 25 were discharged while 18 are undergoing treatment in the hospital at a unit which we isolate them,” Dr. Bello revealed.
Mallam Dahiru Bala one of the bereaved parent who lost his son and brother to the outbreak narrated that, the first incident occured at around 3 AM on Thursday, before they were rushed to the Village’s PHC for immediate medical attention, but there was no first aid kits in the facility. They were then quickly rushed to myijinbir General hospital for proper treatment but due to the bad roads, he lost his son enroute.
Read Also:
Mallam Dahiru added that, Koya village lack adequate water as the wells in the village are dried while only two wells have little water being used by more than 300 people in the village, “also the colour of the water is brownish, we drink the water when it has dissolved and ready to drink because when fetching water from the well it comes along with lots of mud,” he states.
Another resident of the village, Mallam Idi Yau also narrated how he lost his daughter and grandson at the same time due to the outbreak.
A concern citizens in the community lamented that the village need support to be able access clean water, “many of our children take their bath at the river, and they contract skin disease, our biggest challenges is good access to water and roads. Sometimes during the dry season our children don’t go to school because it took so much hours to get water from the neighboring village,” he narrated.
During a visit to the Primary Health Care Centre at Koya Town, the cleaner Mallam Sale Yusuf also complained about lack of water at the Health facility. He said the PHC in the village lack access to water from the borehall for almost 7 months, “we pay not less than N1200 to purchase water from vendors who used cart to delivered it everyday, although the Local Government is aware of the situation, uptill now no action has taken,” he lamented.
Mallama Halima a mother of two, who were admitted at the Minjbir General hospital said the main cauae of the outbreak is not unrelated to the lack of water in the community, “but we have been receiving treatment from the Local Government without paying for hospital bills, however we want the government, philanthropist or other stakeholders to intervene in providing access to good water in our village.
“The village population is not up to 500 but we suffer alot when getting water for drinking or domestic use,” she narrates, revealing that the neighboring village has stopped them from getting water from their village wells and borehole immediately the outbreak was announced.
