Investigation into cause of Lagos cholera outbreak not concluded, says health ministry

The Lagos state government says unregistered tiger nut drinks have not been identified as the cause of the recent cholera outbreak in the state.

There were reports that Kemi Ogunyemi, special adviser to the Lagos state governor on health, said unregistered tiger nut drinks had caused the outbreak.

In an interview on Saturday, Ogunyemi was quoted as saying a survey carried out in Eti-Osa LGA showed that people who visited hospitals in the early days of the outbreak all said they had consumed an unregistered tiger nut drink.

“We found empty bottles with a name on them, but we discovered that it wasn’t even registered with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, the regulatory body that ensures the safety of consumables,” she was quoted as saying.

“There was a phone number and a name on the bottle, and we started tracing. We did contact tracing, similar to what we did with COVID-19. We combed the area to ask people where they got the drinks from.

“We couldn’t find any full bottles. We only found empty ones, which were of no use because we could not test them. The phone number on the bottle was not reachable.”

Reacting to the reports, Tunbosun Ogunbanwo, spokesperson of the ministry of health in Lagos, said Ogunyemi was misquoted.

“Investigations into what caused the outbreak is still ongoing. It is not true that it was caused by tiger nut drink,” he said.

On June 11, Akin Abayomi, Lagos commissioner for health, said five people had died while about 60 residents were hospitalised as a result of the “suspected” cholera outbreak in some parts of the city.

Days later, the commissioner confirmed the cholera outbreak and said there have been 350 suspected cases — with 17 confirmed and 15 fatalities.

As of June 20, there have been 24 deaths and 35 confirmed cholera cases in Lagos.