Gift Joseph Okpakorese
cursory look at the response or reactions of medical practitioners and scientists, to news of disease outbreak or persistent ailments, is always one of significant interest and urgency because they would want to quickly unravel and get to the root of such circumstance especially when there are shreds of evidence pointing to the fact that the said disease is seriously proven to be detrimental and life-threatening.
An average mentality of the typical Nigerian individual is that of one who never really wants to be the scapegoat whose actions, inactions, mistakes, or situation, is presented as the basis from which everywhere persons, would have to learn from, and this has been the case in most circumstances in every aspect of human lives.
Ignorance however on the other hand, or lack of proper education and awareness thereof, could affect negatively and worst still, cause a situation which could have been easily managed, all things being equal, to spiral out of control health-wise and in other sectors of daily life activities in Nigeria.
Recently it was reported that not less than seventy persons have been judged to have contracted an infection perceived to be cholera.
According to the story presented by media correspondents of news sources The Cable, an estimated number of 70 persons, who are students, of a school located in Sokoto State, is said to be infected with a cholera outbreak and the incidence has compelled the school authorities to shuts down.
Media reports announced to the general public the reasons behind the Sokoto state government’s decision to shut down the Government Girls College, located at Mabera, as a result of a medical investigation that revealed a cholera eruption.
Meanwhile, the state commissioner for science and technology Kulu Haruna, corroborated that the story disclosing that it was necessary to shut down and also to serve as a precaution for further spread of the disease that was already confirmed by medical experts, to deal with the already precarious situation.
According to the story, a total number of thirty students were reported to have contracted a mysterious and unusual disease, which was later confirmed to be cholera.
Reacting to the incidence, Haruna, disclosed that over time, the number of students infected has however increased to 70. She continued, stating that a total number of 20 students are present at the isolation center, as the others have been attended to and discharged. She however remarked that the 20 isolated students will continue to be kept in the school and carefully observed until they are well and stabilized.
Nevertheless, the commissioner refuted the negative opinions that the outbreak was a result of the fact that the school administered under unhygienic conditions, and expanded that the opposite was the case and that more health care professionals and sanitary inspectors, and workers have been recruited by the state government to deal with the situation.
Interestingly no teacher or caregiver has been infected, according to the commissioner. What is however alarming and yet to be verified is the rumours and claims that of the tragic demise of two students as a result of the cholera outbreak.
