About nine persons were feared dead in Ezillo community, Ishielu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State following the outbreak of cholera in the area.
Union President of Ezillo Community, Hon. Daniel Ali, confirmed the death of the seven persons to Tribune Online in a telephone interview. But the state government has swiftly debunked the death toll, saying no death has been recorded in the state from the outbreak.
According to Ali, the nine persons died in their homes as they did not make themselves available to the hospital where other victims were treated and discharged.
He then called on the government and other philanthropists to assist the community with boreholes to supply potable water to the community to curtail the further spread of the disease.
He said: “There is a cholera outbreak in my area. As at yesterday, nine persons have been confirmed dead and all the nine persons died in their houses because they did not go to the hospital.
“We equally need the state government to assist us to build public toilets to avoid open defecation because that is part of the problem. We also want the government help to us to have a refuse dump like Abakaliki.”
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Ali thanked the council area chairman who is also from the area for procuring the drugs and offsetting hospital bills of patients that couldn’t pay for their treatment and called on health experts to come to their community to educate their people on how to avoid the disease.
Collaborating, a former youth leader of the area, Okechukwu Idenyi, said the spread of the disease was a result of the river where people drink from, adding that refuses are dumped indiscriminately in the area.
He then called on the government to come to the aid of the community by providing pipe-borne water or boreholes in strategic villages to avoid the re-occurrence of such an outbreak.
“Dumping of refuses is done indiscriminately in the community and then no proper refuse disposal. These are areas we consider to be the cause of the outbreak,” he said.
When Tribune Online contacted the Commissioner for Health in the state, Dr Daniel Umezurike, he confirmed the outbreak of cholera in the area but debunked the death of anyone.
According to the commissioner, all the victims of the disease have been treated and discharged, calling on the public to disregard what he tagged “fake news”.
He said: “There was a cholera outbreak there but it was controlled. No death was recorded. They reported to us that 30 people were affected and we visited the place and we met people on admission and they said they had discharged five persons. That same evening, six persons were discharged. The remaining two were discharged the next morning and since then there has not been any new case.”
