The Rivers State Government has described the report of a cholera outbreak and the death of some persons in the Soku community in the Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of the State as false and unfounded.
The State Commissioner for Health, Adaeze Oreh, stated this in a statement issued in Port Harcourt on Monday.
The State Representative on the management board of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Chief Tony Okocha, on Sunday, disclosed that the commission was deploying drugs and food items to the Soku community following the outbreak of cholera there to prevent the disease from spreading.
“I was able to move my colleagues in the Board to graciously approve immediate health intervention to Soku and other satellite villages, stroke with Cholera and bad water-related ailments,” Okocha said at the most recent Board meeting in Uyo.
“I am proud to say that we have moved in to mitigate the debilitating effects of the disease and ensure it no longer spreads.”
However, the commissioner made a subtle allusion to the NDDC involvement when he stated that there was no connection between the cholera epidemic and an ongoing health outreach program in the region.
Oreh further said a team of public health officials sent to the area to investigate the alleged incident and death have not confirmed any such information and urged members of the public to disregard the report.
The statement reads, “The Rivers State Ministry of Health has received numerous enquiries from the press regarding an alleged outbreak of cholera in the Soku community in Akuku Toru LGA.
“Public health teams dispatched to investigate these alleged cases, and deaths have so far received no confirmation of such. The ongoing medical outreach in the Soku community is in no way related to any outbreak of cholera.
Outreach programs have long been a means of providing vulnerable and underprivileged groups with access to healthcare. However, the State Ministry of Health must approve and collaborate with all such outreach operations; hence, no organization should carry out outreach without the Ministry’s cooperation.
