The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Dr. Sunday Otobo who led a team of ministry’s officials to the supposedly affected areas said that there was no confirmed outbreak of cholera in Delta State.
Otobo, however, admitted that there were incidents of stooling and vomiting recorded at Aladja, Udu Local Council of the state.
He explained that various samples had been taken from the patients to Lagos for testing but none had yet been confirmed suffering from cholera.
He said: “There is no confirmed outbreak of cholera in Delta State. In some communities, to be specific, in Aladja there were incidents of vomiting and stooling that were reported and as a ministry we have done a lot of work, samples have been collected and sent to Lagos for testing but no case of cholera have been confirmed in that community.”
The permanent secretary disclosed that Governor Ifeanyi Okowa had directed health officers in the twenty five local councils of the state to be proactive in detecting and tackling any outbreak of diseases in all communities.
Otobo disclosed that the state governor had instructed that the water plant in the community be resuscitated and put in use to provide potable drinking water for the community.
He added that the state government had taken measures to ensure that the people of the area were sensitised on the need to keep their environment clean and have a healthy living.
He assured: “The Ministry of Environment is also going to mobilize to Aladja to make sure that environmental policies that will not endanger the health of the people are put in place, so that everybody in the community maintains a clean environment and also find a way of proper disposal of faeces.”
The permanent secretary said that the Ministry of Health had a monitoring team on ground in the community to sensitise the people, monitor the situation on ground and report back to the ministry and that the health centres in the community had been equipped with drugs to treat the patients.
