The Osun government will continue enlightening participants at the Osun-Osogbo festival on the need to drink safe water to prevent a cholera outbreak.

Akeem Bello, a director of public health at the Osun health ministry, said this in an interview in Osogbo on Tuesday.

Mr Bello said the enlightenment ensured that no Nigerian or foreign participant came down with the disease.

The Osun-Osogbo festival started on July 29 and will be held for 14 days. It has attracted thousands of Osun worshippers, spectators and tourists.

“We are on top of the situation, and our government is very proactive. We normally advise people to preserve water well and make it free of all germs and dirt because not doing so has health implications. It is not only water from the Osun River,” stated the health official.

He reiterated the recent cholera outbreak in Nigeria and said that none was recorded in Osun.

Mr Bello added, “During the first 100 days of Governor Ademola Adeleke, there were boreholes sunk in all the wards in the state. The ministry of health, with Public Health under my purview, still has our surveillance teams in almost all local governments to notify us of any disease outbreak.

“Presently, in Osun, there is no confirmed case of cholera and we want it to remain like this, and this is because the government is proactive. It is a continuous effort. We will keep going around to educate the citizens.”

The official also said the teams and the government educated the people through radio jingles, among other ways, on any outbreak of diseases.

It is reported that the grove is several centuries old and is among the last of the sacred forests that once adjoined the edges of most Yoruba cities before extensive urbanisation.

The festival is believed to have a history of more than 700 years.

Recognising its global significance and cultural value, the Sacred Grove was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.

(NAN)