Abuja – World Health Organization (WHO) is stepping up support to the Nigerian authorities to assemble emergency neatly being assistance following devastation triggered by excessive flooding that has so some distance affected bigger than 610 000 folks, damaged key total infrastructure and raised the dangers of meals insecurity and spread of infectious ailments.
The floods have displaced bigger than 225 000 folks, with 201 deaths reported in 15 of the nation’s 36 states and about 115 000 hectares of farmland inundated.
In Maiduguri, the capital of the nation’s north-japanese Borno express, bigger than 230 000 folks had been suffering from floods after a well-known dam collapsed following intense rainfall. The deluge has hampered access to neatly being facilities, colleges and markets. Fourteen neatly being facilities had been flooded. Acute watery diarrhoea, malaria, other water-borne and infectious ailments, in addition to malnutrition are a couple of of the foremost neatly being dangers in the wake of the excessive floods.
WHO has deployed four mobile neatly being teams comprising 20 clinical personnel with well-known pills and clinical supplies, to the affected areas in Maiduguri. The teams are providing medicine for minor ailments, routine immunization, antenatal and postnatal services and products in addition to psychological neatly being care and coordinating clinical referrals to bigger hospitals. One other WHO group of fifty frontline volunteers has been deployed to enact group lively case look forward to water-borne and vaccine preventable ailments in camps for the displaced.
To mitigate the threat of malnutrition and vector-borne ailments, meals and non-meals items including blankets and lengthy-lasting insecticide treated nets, had been supplied by express neatly being authorities and companions, including WHO, on the Asheikh Jarma settlement. A cool store has been established at a local clinical institution to store and process laboratory samples and for vaccine storage.
“The flooding in Nigeria poses a excessive public neatly being scenario, necessitating a swift, agile and entire response,” says Dr Walter Kazadi Mulombo, WHO Manual in Nigeria. “Shut collaboration between authorities and companions akin to WHO is well-known to such efforts.”
The Nigerian federal authorities, by the National Emergency Management Company (NEMA), has mounted a multisectoral emergency response in collaboration with native neatly being authorities in affected states, in addition to WHO and other companions. The Ministry of Health has also activated emergency response name centres.
In Jigawa, amongst the worst-hit express, authorities have transformed public buildings and colleges into shelters for the displaced and dispensed meals rations, blankets and mosquito nets. Meanwhile, WHO has supplied Jigawa with around US$ 45 000 of distinguished pills and clinical supplies, including like a flash diagnostic kits for malaria and anti-malarial medication. The Organization is in the strategy of dispatching identical donations to 2 other affected states, Bauchi and Kogi.
“We’re grateful to WHO for this key contribution to our efforts to forestall the outbreak of ailments amongst flood victims right now living in short camps,” says Dr Mohammed Kainuwa, the Commissioner of Health for Jigawa. “Above all, these supplies will relieve us to present protection to displaced pregnant girls and formative years, who are significantly vulnerable.”
According to Manzo Ezekiel, spokesperson for NEMA, the flooding, which has so some distance largely been confined to the north of the nation, may per chance possibly well well aggravate in the coming weeks as flood waters crawl downwards to central and southern states.
“WHO will continue to support the authorities because it strives to mitigate the impact of this ongoing neatly being crisis and put lives,” says Dr Malumbo.
