The death toll from a cholera outbreak in northern Nigerian has risen to 231, while 4,600 others have been infected, Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said.
"As of two or three days ago, the figure we have in the federal ministry of health is that 4,600 people have been infected with cholera in some states of the federation, out which 231 have died," he said in an interview on the Hausa service of the BBC, monitored in Kano.
Officials in the northern states of Bauchi and Borno had earlier put the death toll at 107.
Cholera causes serious diarrhoea and vomiting, leading to dehydration. With a short incubation period, it can be fatal if not treated in time. - (Sapa/AFP, August 2010)