Sanitation and Vaccination Help Keep Cholera at Bay in Bayelsa State
A health advocate shares his experience of being cut with a razor blade as a form of immunity against cholera.
Mike Ekiye, a well-known 50-year-old journalist and one of the recently engaged On-Air-Personalities, during the just concluded 2-day media dialogue on preventive messaging on Cholera in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State shared his enthusiastic message on prevention of cholera, on his FM radio station.
Mike and other children in their younger days were often forcibly given ritualistic cuts at local shrines as “protection” against Cholera disease.
His message, now as a partner to promote hygiene, is loud and direct for all listeners tuning in to his channel. His “break the deadly cholera cycle” is a clarion call on air, voicing the UNICEF and Bayelsa State Primary Heath Care Development Agency media advocacy campaign.
Ekiye adds, “I am privileged to have gained this knowledge on the prevention of Cholera. Back when I was 6 years old in my village in Sagbama Local Government Area, children like me were taken to a shrine and given a cut with a razor blade as immunity against Cholera”.
Today, Mike is happy to have received medically sound information on prevention of cholera, with a special focus on the modes of transmission through awareness.
Showing the mark of his cut, which he received as a child at the community’s local shrine, he added, “the same razor blade was used to cut all the children, and the mark is still here, I still remember it vividly”.
Such local practices hinder larger medical interventions by compounding the problem with misinformation and superstition. Cholera is an acute enteric infection often seen with an onset of viral vomiting, profuse dehydration and diarrhoea with characteristic water stools.
Left without proper treatment, Cholera’s mortality touches a worrisome 50 per cent of all affected patients, leaving them susceptible to severe dehydration and eventual death. Timely and appropriate treatment has significantly reduced the risk of death.
Bayelsa State is cholera endemic and regularly suffers such unchecked outbreaks.
Following the recent outbreak in the region, UNICEF in collaboration with Bayelsa State Primary Heath Care Development Agency, has embarked on a massive media advocacy for increased stakeholders’ commitment towards meeting global SDG’s mark, to end Cholera by 2030, with a call to secure the community through these simple and effective measures:
- Emphasis on provision of clean potable drinking water.
- Messages of import like the need to sanitize and washing of hands often with soap and safe water.
- The use of latrines or burying of faeces (stool).
- To avoid defecating in any body of water.
- To systemically end open defecation.
- The need to cook food well (especially seafood), keep it covered, eat it hot, and peel fruits and vegetables.
- Clean up safely—in the kitchen and in places where the family bathes and washes clothes.
- Ensure administration of Oral Cholera Vaccine through the already ongoing Bayelsa State campaign.
There is need to break the cycle of cholera outbreaks and other preventable diseases by promoting sustainable health practices, improving access to clean water and sanitation, and ensuring that every child and every family can thrive in a safe and healthy environment,
