MSF treats over 7,000 cholera cases in Nigeria’s Borno state, reports 74 deaths since May

A cholera outbreak in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state has killed 74 people and infected more than 7,000 others since it began in early May, Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday. The medical charity has treated 7,439 patients at its facilities in the state, averaging 185 admissions per day. It recorded 500 patients on Friday of last week, the highest single-day total during the outbreak.

The cases have been reported in 14 of Borno state’s 27 local government areas. The outbreak is occurring in communities whose health systems have been weakened by nearly two decades of violent extremism from the Boko Haram insurgent group. Cholera is endemic and seasonal in Nigeria.

Only 14 percent of the country’s population of more than 200 million have access to safely managed drinking water supply services, according to government data from 2020. The situation is often worse in Borno, both in the densely populated capital Maiduguri and in remote communities with poor sanitation and hygiene that lie beyond the regular reach of health authorities.

“Open defecation is making it worse also, and there is less partners (on the ground),” said Jessie Kurnurkar, a project coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF.

“By the time we know the cases in the community, the local transmission has happened, and it is difficult to respond, because the spread has become more,” Kurnurkar said. Aisha Ibrahim, a cholera patient at an MSF treatment center in Maiduguri, said she had been defecating nonstop since falling ill and had been admitted for more than four days.

“When they discharged me, the vomiting stopped, and when I got home, I started stooling again, and it became severe (so) I was rushed back to the center,” Ibrahim said.

A child suffering from cholera had a blood sample taken at the MSF treatment centre in Maiduguri on Monday, June 8, 2026.