Cholera is endemic in Nigeria, but the outbreak this year has been especially severe, with more than 90,000 people infected so far. While nearly all of Nigeria’s 35 states have reported cholera cases in 2021, the vast majority have been concentrated in the six northern states of Bauchi, Kano, Jigawa, Zamfara, Sokoto and Katsina. The population of this region is already extremely vulnerable; hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes by conflict and violence, and most live in conditions with poor sanitation and no safe drinking water.
MSF emergency teams are working alongside the Nigerian Ministry of Health to try and bring the spiralling outbreak under control, opening six cholera treatment centres across the region and treating more than 20,000 patients so far.