The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has recorded a total of 40 confirmed cases of Monkey (Mpox) disease within across the nation.
The director-general of the NCDC, Jide Idris, confirmed this during a briefing held in Abuja on Friday, which was conducted in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and involved various stakeholders and partners.
He noted that these cases have been identified across approximately 13 states, with a significant concentration in the southern regions, particularly the south-south and south-east areas.
Idris further indicated that the NCDC intends to focus its efforts on these states to mitigate the number of cases and to implement active surveillance measures aimed at identifying additional cases.
“We have 40 confirmed cases out of 830 suspected cases. Fortunately, we have not recorded any deaths, which is remarkable,” he said.
He added: “We have developed an incident action plan to address each area, using various pillars.
“We have met with state governments and state commissioners of health to advise them on establishing their emergency preparedness and response teams, capabilities, and action plans.
“They will coordinate this with their respective local government areas.
“All confirmed cases so far were validated using genomic sequencing in two labs—the National Research Lab in Abuja and Lagos.
“Due to the spread, we need to increase the number of laboratories for testing, including Lagos University Teaching Hospital and the African Centre for Genomics.”
Naija News reports that World Health Organization (WHO) and the Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) had earlier declared the outbreak of Mpox in parts of Africa a public health emergency.
Hundreds of people have died from the diseases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) while it has spread to other countries.
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