Cholera Kills 40 in North Nigeria

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KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - At least 40 people have been killed in an outbreak of cholera in north Nigeria, villagers and health officials said on Friday.

Dozens more have been hospitalized since the disease first broke out eight weeks ago in the Ungogo and Nasarawa council areas of the northern Kano State, they said.

"We have so far recorded 10 deaths,'' a senior medical officer at the state-run Infections Disease Hospital who declined to be named, told Reuters.

He said the dead were among the 50 people brought to the hospital suffering from cholera.

Another medical official at the Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital in the Kano metropolis, said the hospital recorded 15 deaths from 38 cases referred to it.

Villagers said many more deaths were recorded but not reported to health authorities.

"In our area, we recorded 15 deaths,'' said the village head of the Rimi Kebe district, Mai Ugwar.

Health authorities there said government had taken steps to check the spread of the disease.

"Government has supplied vaccines and dispatched medical personnel to the affected areas,'' a health ministry official said.

Villagers linked the cholera outbreak to poor sanitary conditions. 

Source: Anonymous. Associate Press, November 3, 2000.