Cholera: Lagos death toll hits 29 as 30 more hospitalised

…Source of disease not yet known, vaccines unavailable – LASG

The death toll from the cholera disease plaguing Lagos State climbed to 29, with 30 other patients hospitalised, according to Akin Abayomi, Lagos health commissioner, who briefed journalists on Monday.

This is also as investigation of water, food and beverage sources is yet to reveal the source of the cholera outbreak in Lagos, nearly two weeks after the disease hit the state.

Read also: Cholera outbreak: FG warns against consumption of local beverages

Abayomi said the state’s surveillance cannot tie the outbreak to a specific although efforts are ongoing to unravel the sources of samples tested.

“So far, we have not been able to identify a source, but investigations are continuing because we want to see if we can identify a particular source or sources. But moving forward, we are going to keep active surveillance around our water sources and the distribution of beverages in Lagos State,” Abayomi said while giving an update on the disease.

The commissioner further revealed that 30 patients were currently being hospitalised for varying degrees of the disease at the IDH, Yaba.

He added that about 579 suspected cases have been identified, 43 of which are confirmed through laboratory analysis, just as he attributed the majority of the deaths to late presentation in hospital.

“Most of these deaths were caused by patients presenting very late at a stage where we could not resuscitate them because they had severe rehydration and many patients were brought in dead,” Abayomi said.

Read also: Investigation yet to reveal source of cholera outbreak

“Out of all the samples we were able to collect, we were able to identify Vibrio cholera. So, this is indeed a confirmed case of a cholera outbreak by a subtype O1 that is known to us to be very contagious and to cause significant sickness in those that contract it.”