Life is a struggle with urinary infections in Ijoun

By Ruona Agbroko
June 6, 2009 06:47PMT

The road to Ijoun, a village in Yewa-North local council, Ogun State, gets smaller as the forest that flanks it gets denser with foliage. A once-white signboard welcomes you to the "Home of economic buoyancy and profitability," but the reality is the opposite.
Residents say that, for years, Ijoun has been a home for urinary schistosomiasis, a parasitic water-borne disease that causes anaemia, bladder dysfunction, kidney and liver disease, and impaired learning in children.

Inside the village, bare-breasted women emerged from houses, sporting rusty aluminium roofing sheets that complemented the red clay roads. If health is indeed wealth, then poverty is rife in Ijoun.
Its children have distended bellies and stick-thin legs and its adults are bitter at their helplessness. They kept demanding if NEXT brought drugs, saying they were tired of being asked questions, and having their children's samples taken repeatedly with no corresponding progress.
‘Ko se bo mora, ("we can't keep covering this") a toothless guardian yelled at her neighbours, as she dragged a child holding a glass bottle containing his blood stained urine before NEXT.
She implored him to hold the bottle aloft and get his picture taken. Maybe he would get a cure soon enough, she said, with a shrug.
The child, seven-year-old Jimoh [pictured with guardian], asked NEXT in impeccable Yoruba to promise the said picture would not be seen by his friends. In the end, only Jimoh and his family were willing to talk to NEXT.

Ignorance is grief
According to the Carter Center, an organisation owned by former US President Jimmy Carter, an estimated 22 million Nigerians, including 16 million children, are infected by Schistosomiasis.
Although it is incurable once contracted, schistosomiasis can be prevented and its transmission controlled with a single annual drug dose of the drug Praziquantel (about N30 per dose). However, the words ‘Schistosomiasis' and ‘Praziquantel' are met with looks of bewilderment in Ijoun; practically all the residents are illiterate. The disease is instead, named "eje inu ito" (blood in the urine), after its most obvious symptoms.
The dense foliage and lack of potable water are apparent reasons why the disease thrives. "There is no single water, no borehole in this area; only one small stream where everybody washes, bathes and still drinks", says Hans Oshinowo, a settler in the community.
Mr. Oshinowo said the residents are also to blame. "They do not come out to say they have this disease, maybe out of shame. They also do not listen to the Baale (Chief) when he says they should take care of the stream."
While Samuel Abiodun, the community's chief, said the problem has gone on for years and puts the number of cases at ‘about 200', workers in the public health centre, a mere five minutes' drive away, said they "got to know only two weeks ago", after media reports prompted local government officials to investigate.
Mr. Oshinowo said the investigation was only a routine of the officials which would yield no results. "They have come only twice. Each time it was to collect samples, look at the stream and go away; nothing comes out of it," he said.

A 2008 report by dons from the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta titled "Geographical information system and predictive risk maps of urinary schistosomiasis in Ogun State, Nigeria" projects that "of 809,222 school aged children living in Ogun State, 801,075 (98.99 percent) are living in areas that can harbour the infection." It adds that risk for "infection of urinary schistosomiasis increases in the south-westerly direction of Ogun State", with Yewa-North LGA, where Ijoun is located, being among "places of maximum risk."
Despite the Carter Center's assertion that Nigeria is the most schistosomiasis-endemic country in Africa, the country's World Health Organisation office in its 2007 annual report, states that "mass drug administration for schistosomiasis control is limited to Plateau, Nasarawa and Delta States due to lack of the drug (Praziquantel)".

This corroborates Ijoun residents' assertions that despite a high prevalence of cases, they have received no drugs.

NEXT's telephone calls to Abiodun Oduwole, the Ogun State Commissioner for Health, were unanswered. Meanwhile, the residents, oblivious to the bureaucratic processes that diminish their chances of a respite from this scourge, still hoped that so long as samples had been taken, "government will do something."

Residents of Ijoun speak their minds
The worried monarch, Samuel Abiodun, Baale Iseunijoun (spoke in Yoruba)

Government should help our children that are urinating blood. We have had this problem for about three years. People have come from Abeokuta and Lagos. They have only come to do blood and urine tests. They have not brought drugs. We don't have water. No good roads. No higher institution, only one secondary school. Since you have asked, we will go and inform the local government formally.

The helpless guardian Madam Olugbejesi (spoke in Yoruba)
This boy has no father. His father is dead. We need help from the government to take care of this child's ailment.
His mother abandoned the children and has been going about, marrying all sorts of men. I try my best, but we don't have money to take care of ourselves, as you can see.