December 21, 2017 Maiduguri, Borno State
Distinguished colleagues, the members of the media community, champions of humanitarianism, friends, ladies and gentlemen, Good morning all and a warm welcome.
I must thank you all for your time and above all for the courage to have remained steadfast during the period of this cholera outbreak.
We are all here today because we have contributed one way or the other to control the outbreak that we have come to close. On 16 August this year, the State government through the State ministry of Health got report of cases suspected to be cholera in the Muna garage IDP camp. With the support of WHO and other health actors moved to quick action to control outbreak, with that strong resolve to limit mortality and morbidity, this was achieved, and we can say that we have succeeded. A little over 5000 cases was recorded across 6 Local governments area in Borno state, Jere, MMC, Dikwa, Monguno, Mafa and Guzamala LGAs and with 61 deaths reported.
The cholera outbreak ongoing in other parts of the world was a wake-up call, that if we toy with it, it will toy with us. Given the weakened health system resulting from long years of insurgency and the high population density in Muna garage camp, made it paramount for immediate and coordinated response to avoid pit falls experienced by other nations with similar challenges. I must say that we have succeeded in controlling the outbreak.
This, certainly was as a result of the multi sectoral strategy adopted and the very strong partner leadership from WHO in coordinating with other implementing partners to support the state in closing identified gaps in surveillance, risk communication, water and sanitation among others. The preparedness of the health cluster to respond to cholera outbreak, effective partner coordination, swift activation of the Emergency Operations Center, efficient case management and surveillance were the strong points that helped us disrupt transmission and reduced mortality to about 1%, as this could have been worse given previous outbreak like that in 2010. Today, we are more than 2 weeks without any case reported and this signifies that we have come to the end of this outbreak.
Our collaborative effort proved very useful in this instance and has shown that working together we achieve faster and better. Building partnerships across all sectors is the only sure way to work now and in the future.
The state will now be far prepared and equipped to prevent and respond even better in the event of another outbreak. Now, we must begin to document and harness the lessons learnt, as a contribution to assurance of our collective future.
I want to thank all partners that supported the implementation of prevention and control strategies, management of cases and providing technical support to our staff on ground.
We must also seize this as an opportunity to continue to educate and enlighten our people on these strategies as to avert a next occurrence. We still ask that the UN agencies and other partners to continue the good work, keep supporting the state government and her agencies in the quest to provide improved health services for the people of Borno, especially the displaced.
I must thank specially WHO for that Leadership in the response, Unicef, Oxfam, Solidarite International for support in Water and sanitation, MSF, FHI 360, MDM, ALIMA in case Management and a host of others that I may not have mentioned. We must also recognize the various roles played by the Federal Ministry of Health and her agencies, NCDC, NPHCDA in disrupting this outbreak and collaboration of own MOH staff and other state agencies, SPHCDA, BOSEPA, RUWASSA. The State government and people of Borno state cannot thank you enough.
By this we declare the cholera outbreak over.
Thank you,
Signed….Hon. Commissioner of Health