Lack of clean water and poor personal and environmental hygiene are known as two of the leading causes of waterborne diseases, such as cholera. Although several cases of the disease have also been reported, some communities still rely on rivers as a source of water. Drink water while practicing open bowel movements.
Shishipe, a network in Katampe, the network in the Federal Capital Territory, faced the harsh reality of having to get empty water from a small stream. This is in addition to the network that practices open defecation, as there are no WASH facilities. The network, along with three suburbs (Eke Bassa, Dagiri and Patenka) of Nigeria’s capital, are at risk of a cholera outbreak, reports CIRI’s Mustapha Usman.
Moses Joy, 35, takes the same direction every day to access water from the nearby creek. It’s a daily ritual. All her life she has been accustomed to the same water source as the river, which is still the only water that the other members of the Shishipe community have for domestic use.
Shishipe, a local community in the Katampe region of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), fights for blank water, as do several small communities in the territory.
Several resources in the network told CIIR that despite the level of impurities in the river, more than 500 citizens count on it. Due to the river’s location on the outskirts of the village, the locals would take a long walk to retrieve some spoons and at the same time serve as a source of water for the herds.
The scenario is much worse when the creek becomes muddy and dirty. In addition, citizens in the Shishipe network not only lack access to safe drinking water, but are also vulnerable to waterborne diseases due to poor open defecation practices.
Cholera, an endemic disease, remains one of the main diseases affecting Nigerians, especially in rural areas of the country. The disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), is an acute diarrheal infection characterized, in its severe form, by excess watery diarrhea and life-threatening dehydration.
In 2020, the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), an agency leading the national response to the outbreak of cholera and other epidemic diseases in Nigeria’s states, attributed the rise in cholera cases in the country to a lack of blank water and open water. defecation, poor sanitation and hygiene.
“It’s the only water we have; We drink, wash, and shower with the same water. Although we would have liked to have had a functional well, we are pleased to be able to continue to feed on it.
“The government came here to build us a motorized well many years ago, but it wasn’t long before it was damaged. And since then, we’ve gone back to our same old search for water,” Joy said.
But there’s a lot more to Joy’s situation. She almost lost her two children. On several occasions, the gym staff pleaded with her to stop feeding her daughter with water from the stream.
In 2022, a medical center in Katampe diagnosed her two sons with cholera. They were hospitalized for two weeks before being discharged. “They told me that this was the water they were drinking and that they would be prevented from drinking more, but it was just a speech because we have no other way to get water in the village. “
This is the scenario in some of the other communities that CIRI visited. For example, in Dagiri, a district of the Gwagwalada Regional Council, a segment of the river that runs through the domain has been turned into an open-air landfill.
A resident who goes by Sheidu said many other people who don’t have toilets in their homes are staying on the edge of the erosion ravine as a place to defecate.
Sheidu further explained to CIIR that the banks of the river have become a dumping ground due to the majority of citizens living nearby.
The FCT, in June 2021, recorded suspected cases of cholera and seven deaths in the Abuja City Council (AMAC) from the same problem.
The former acting secretary of the FCT’s Secretariat of Health and Social Services (HHSS), Dr. Mohammed Kawu, speaking to reporters in Abuja, cited Bwari and Gwagwalada among the other two affected areas. About a month later, the Federal Capital Territory Administration 514 suspected cases, of which 8 laboratory tests yielded cholera.
Nigeria is one of thirteen African countries that have been battling cholera over time. The existing outbreak has been occurring since 2021, when the country reported 111,062 suspected cases, totaling 3,604 deaths, according to NCDC data.
Cases have been reported largely in youth ages five to 14 in 33 states and the FCT.
The data show that both sexes have the same percentage of age. Four states out of the 33 affected plus FCT, namely Bauchi, Jigawa, Kano and Zamfara, account for 53 per cent of all cumulative cases.
Bauchi, which topped the total number of reported cases, recorded 19,558 cases, accounting for 18% of actual cases, while Jigawa (15,141), Kano (12,116) and Zamfara (11,931) accounted for 14, 11, and 11%.
Meanwhile, the NCDC has recorded 1,286 suspected cases in the FCT, while 77 deaths have been confirmed. According to some projections, this figure could have been higher if all citizens had gone to the public gym or hospital to complain about this waterborne disease. .
Comparing the recorded cases with 2022 data, the country, between January 1, 2022 and December 30, reported a cumulative number of 23,763 suspected cholera cases with 592 deaths in 32 states plus FCT. While there were concerns about the number of reported cases, the knowledge shows a significant decline in 2021.
Cases reported in 2022 peaked between July and November before symptoms of decline appeared in December.
In September 2022, the country recorded 7,322 suspected cases and 171 suspected deaths, making it the highest figure for this period. Similarly, in December, Nigeria recorded its lowest number of cases, with 219 suspected cases and nine suspected deaths.
Additional data shows that children between the ages of five and 14 were the most affected, while 49 percent of reported suspected cases were males and 51 percent females. Borno, with 12. 46 five cases, leads the state with the highest number of cholera. Yobe (1,888 cases) and Katsina (1,639 cases) joined the state among the three worst-hit states.
These three states, along with Gombe (1,407 cases), Taraba (1,153 cases) and Kano (1,131 cases), account for 83 of the total reported suspected cases.
Already in 2023, the country has recorded several suspected cases of cholera in 24 states. As of July 2, a total of 2,052 suspected cases have been registered, totaling 55 deaths. And what’s not unusual here is that young minors have been hit the hardest. not unusually affected by the epidemic.
Of the 22 states, Cross River, with 718 cases, accounts for 25% of all suspected cases so far. According to the data, the state’s local Obubra domain reported the number of suspected cases, 515, or 25% of all suspected cases.
However, earlier this year, on January 21, ICIR reported that a cholera outbreak in the Obubra LGA reportedly killed more than 60 people. Just as CIHIR surveys reveal that other people in some FCT communities count a river as their only source of water, the other inhabitants of Obubra also live on a river as their only source of water.
Approximately 3 months after the crisis, LGA was classified as one of the areas of maximum vulnerability across the other affected LGAs. Katsina, Ebonyi and Zamfara recorded 288, 227 and 216 cases respectively.
About a year after CIIR first published an article detailing how Ikeh Bassa faced several obstacles to accessing clean water, this journalist visited the town and discovered that the network still supplies water to the herd.
Issa Rose, a twenty-six-year-old resident of Bassa, has been walking through the bush to fetch water from the river since she was four years old. When she finally gets water, she and her family use it to support themselves.
Even after her marriage, Rose maintained this regimen and provided muddy spring water for her two children. This persists despite the recommendations of doctors who oppose such actions.
“I went to the hospital several times to treat my children when they complained of abdominal pains or other symptoms. I called him angry; Sometimes the doctor tells me it’s diarrhea, fever, or malaria.
“It happens almost every single time, and I would have to spend my hard-earned money in agriculture to take care of them. Some of us adults are used to this and rarely have poor health, yet our young people are in poor health. almost each and every time.
A UNICEF report indicates that although about 70% of Nigerians have access to basic water services, more than a portion of those water resources are infected, meaning that more than 60 million Nigerians drink infected water, which is linked to several fatal causes. , adding cholera.
Musa Ibrahim, Ikeh Bassa’s youth leader, described the net as a hunting dog that, despite its most fruitful efforts to get the hunter to reach his goal, does not deserve it.
He said, “It’s not that we don’t vote, vote and participate in elections, but in the end we’ll be left as the hunting dog that we go to the farm and catch, even after we catch, we eat the bone. “, possibly they wouldn’t allow you to eat it.
He explained that the locals went out of their way to ask the government to build a well to prevent drinking water from the stream, but it did not yield a positive result.
The network also wrote to the Kwali Regional Council to inform them of their plight, but they fell on deaf ears.
In a letter to the city council won on March 9, 2022, the network defined its water, hospital, and road needs.
ICIR reports that N50 million was budgeted in 2021 for the structure of motorized wells in the regional councils of Kwali and Kuje. However, Ikeh Bassi did not take advantage of this so-called subsidy.
In addition to the lack of clean water, waste control is a major challenge in the Patenka region of Lugbe, as humans are in a constant scramble for space with waste and dirt. This disastrous scenario affects investors who promote at the front end of the market. and pedestrians passing by on the road leading to Lugbe Zone 9.
Sadly, the network has reached a point where investors have reluctantly accepted their fate, as ‘Baban Bola’ (young people who apply as independent waste creditors) and cleaners take over the facilities.
Although reports have shown that Nigeria has recorded some innovations in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) issues, considerations are being developed on meeting Nigeria’s Social Development Goals (SDGs) to 2030.
According to a report published in 2022 through the Ministry of Water Resources, with information from the 2021 WASHNORM survey that sampled more than 24,600 families across the country, only 10% of the Nigerian population had to incorporate basic WASH services, which has serious negative consequences for health and health. Implications for the security of the population, as well as for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 6) through the federal government.
Around 179 million Nigerians, or up to 87% of the population, do not have safely controlled drinking water services. The situation is especially dire in the north, where it remains insufficient, with the northeast having the lowest rate, with only 2 consistents. with cent. By contrast, the Southwest region has the highest rate at 29 percent.
However, 67% of the population had access to essential water. The main drinking water resources were drilled and tube wells, used by about 37% of households, while 11% of the population used piped water and only four per cent used water from a source connected to their household. Similarly, about a quarter of the population (25%) still relies on an unimproved surface water source for their daily water needs.
Comparing this data to the 2019 WASHNORM report, there is a reduction of 3 percent, as 70 percent of the population had access to a basic source of water in 2019. In 2018, 68 percent of the population had access to basic water. .
Similarly, open defecation remains a challenge in the country, with as many as 48 million Nigerians across the country still defecating in the open, accounting for 23 percent of the population.
The WASHNORM survey showed that 46 percent of the population had access to basic sanitation services in 2021, up from 44 percent in 2019, representing a 2 percent (6. 9 million people) increase in the number of people. access to essential sanitationArray
Despite the increase in the number of basic health services, the proportion of people practicing open defecation in the country has increased slightly since 2019, from 46 million in 2019 to 48 million in 2021.
In the CTF, 30 per cent of respondents practise open defecation, while 52 per cent of the population has access to basic sanitation services. Array Ebonyi tops the list of states with the highest practice of open defecation, with 73 percent defecating openly and only 14 percent. % of the population that has access to basic sanitation in the state.
Meanwhile, in Zamfara state, only 1 percent of respondents practiced open defecation, despite the percentage of people with access to basic health services in the state was 43 percent.
As in Shishipe district, where government-built water fountain services lasted for one year, 38% of all water fountain services nationwide were operational at the time of the survey.
WASHNORM estimated the number of water problems nationwide at 2. 3 million waters, of which about 60% are in rural areas and 40% in urban spaces. 31 per cent of those installations were motorised wells and approximately 1 in 10 (11 per cent) motorised wells Hand pump wells, added to forced lift hand pump wells, account for only thirteen per cent of water problems in Nigeria.
The rapid expansion of the population and the effect of Covid-19 are points that are considered to overshadow the government’s efforts so far.
The report warns that addressing WASH needs, cholera and other WASH-related infections and related child morbidity and mortality rates will remain well above the regional and global average.
Cholera can be harmful among children, especially in spaces where access to clean water, sanitation and fitness is limited, according to Dr. Adewumi Babatunde, a public fitness physician.
Children are more vulnerable to severe headaches and have a higher risk of mortality due to several factors, the doctor notes.
“Nigeria faces significant demanding situations in the implementation of WASH initiatives, especially in underserved spaces and among marginalized populations. Access to safe drinking water remains limited, especially in rural areas, due to insufficient infrastructure and poor water treatment facilities.
Health policy is low, open defecation practices persist and inadequate sanitation facilities persist. Hygiene practices, including handwashing, need to be improved. Underinvestment and investment obstruct progress on WASH infrastructure and programs.
According to him, strengthening institutional capacity for development, coordination, regulation and policy monitoring are some of the very important steps that need to be taken for health.
Speaking of conceivable solutions, Babatunde said that the government at all levels deserves to carry out public awareness campaigns to teach the population about cholera prevention and control measures.
He added that strengthening health systems and immunization policy would help end the epidemic.
“Vaccination campaigns can be considered in high-risk spaces or vulnerable populations. Oral cholera vaccines are effective in preventing cholera outbreaks and can be given to Americans or used as a component of a mass vaccination strategy.
Babatunde extra explained that citizens can ensure they have access to drinking water by treating it by boiling, filtering or adding chlorine.
“Proper sanitation practices, such as the use of toilets or latrines, help prevent contamination of water resources and the spread of cholera. The public deserves to support efforts to improve health infrastructure and discourage open defecation.
He also noted that by informing hospitals early, cholera cases and the spread can be mitigated, adding that citizens who do not have access to clean water deserve to be vaccinated against cholera to avoid potential outbreaks.
Usman Mustapha is an answer journalist at the International Center for Investigative Journalism. You can contact him seamlessly via: umustapha@icirnigeria. com. Il tweets@UsmanMustapha_M