Bauchi Gov’t, UNICEF Train LGA WASH Officers On Cholera Preparedness, Presentation
By Murtala Muhammad
With the rainy season fully setting in and cholera cases on the rise across the country, health authorities are alerting the public on preventive measures and maintaining good hygiene to curb the spread of the disease.
Against this backdrop, Bauchi state government in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF) has organised a four-day Workshop on Cholera Preparedness and Response for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) officers across seven local government areas in the state.
The engagement aimed at sensitising the participants on Case Area Targeted Intervention (CATI) and to equip them with preventive and response strategies, will also provide them with hygiene kits for early action.
CATI are public health response strategy used to rapidly control infectious disease outbreaks, especially cholera.
It deploys localised multi-sector packages to affected households and neighbors within a high-risk radius of 100 to 250 meters within days of a case detection.
All these are being put together following the report and detection, identification of about four hundred Cholera cases in seven out of the twenty local government areas of the state. They are Alkaleri, Bauchi, Ganjuwa, Kirfi, Ningi, Tafawa Ɓalewa and Toro.
Available data indicates that Cholera cases are being reported in the state annually, particularly during the rainy season due to consumption of unsafe water and poor sanitation and hygiene practices.
The Director, Sanitation and Hygiene of the State’s Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency, RUWASSA Bala Zailani assured the agency’s commitment to tackling the spread of the disease through aggressive sensitisation in the affected areas.
He disclosed that the unaffected local government areas were also included in the distribution of the hygiene kits and other strategies to enable them tackle possible outbreaks.
Also speaking, the WASH Officer, UNICEF Bauchi Field Office, Ms Nambam Dawap said children were at high risk of contracting waterborne diseases due to their vulnerability, hence the need for parents, caregivers, and the community to ensure they were provided with clean and safe drinking water.
She emphasised the importance of clean and safe water to children’s health and reaffirmed the Fund’s sustained commitment to supporting Bauchi state government to improve enhance child health and welfare.
A participant interviewed, Hauwa Shehu from Toro local government said the workshop exposed her to new ideas and strategies to contain the outbreak and promised to judiciously apply the knowledge garnered in her area of primary assignment.