The Niger Government says data available shows that there were no confirmed cases of cholera in the state.
Dr Idris Ibrahim, Director Public Health, Niger Ministry for Secondary and Tertiary Health, said the state was not relenting as all precautionary measures had been put in place to respond and mitigate against any outbreak.
“Our technical people are alert, coordination at the state and local government levels is ongoing.
“The state epidemiology in the public health department and the state disease surveillance officers are all alert looking at all the data coming from local government areas.
“They are analysing the data to know if anyone has increased on a weekly basis, there is also active surveillance such as being in constant communication with local governments areas,” he said.
Ibrahim said there were two surveillance officers in each local government area with their two assistants reporting situations to the state as part of coordination structure.
He added surveillance officers were also positioned at health facilities with a high volume of patients going through the outpatients register to identify any case of patients with symptoms of vomiting and purging.
The director said the ministry had trained some persons called “community informants”, as contacts tracers to identify persons taken to traditional herbal care homes with symptoms like diarrhoea and vomiting.
He disclosed that officials of the state public health and the state epidemiology departments alongside partners such as WHO and UNICEF meet twice weekly to discuss data.Ibrahim said the state had taken preposition measures to deploy consumables and drugs across local government areas as preparedness to respond to any emergency case, adding that data was constantly transmitted to the national level.
He disclosed that the ministry had embarked on sensitization using media organisations to sensitise the public on personal hygiene and how to keep their environment clean.
He added that part of the sensitization was public health education for people to always visit a nearby health facility when they are sick for proper medical treatment.
