Cholera: FCTA activates emergency operation centre

In an effort to curtail the ravaging scourge of cholera in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the administration says it has activated an Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) to ensure effective management of cholera outbreak in some communities in the territory.

The Director, Public Health, Health and Human Services Secretariat, FCTA, Dr Humphrey Okoroukwu, made this known to the press in Abuja.

Report said seven deaths have so far been recorded from cholera outbreak in different communities of the FCT.

The disease had claimed lives at Sauka, Mpape, Kubwa and Ushafa communities.

Okoroukwu explained that the activated EOC would be working on four pillars of surveillance, case management, laboratory and health promotion, education and community mobilisation.

According to him, officers from his department and those of area councils will work to ensure a robust surveillance to check the spread of the disease.

He said that there would henceforth be effective and more efficient laboratory system to hasten laboratory results.

The director noted that health education and promotion would be enhanced to sensitise residents in every nook and cranny of the territory.

He said that though only one case had so far been confirmed positive to cholera from laboratory test carried out, but the cases fit in into the definition cases of cholera.