Monkeypox: Nigerian government enforces increased border surveillance
The Nigerian Government is to enforce increased border surveillance, distributing diagnostic protocols to port health services and putting people on higher alert at international airports, sea ports, and land borders as measures to curtail rampaging monkeybox.
Penpushing reports that as at Friday the authorities have confirmed 40 cases of the viral disease recently declared a public emergency of international concern by the World Health Organisation (WHO), just as the Nigerian government in similar vein re-introduced health declaration forms at airports for people returning or visiting the country
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Pate, made this known explaining that these efforts were in response to the rapid spread of the disease in African countries where an outbreak has been declared.
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Penpushing further reports that the Coordinating Minister explained that Nigeria intends to tackle the disease by deploying measures similar to those used during the coronavirus pandemic, adding that these measures will be introduced alongside the activation of infectious disease centres in all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The record, however, has it that confirmed cases of the disease in Nigeria were recorded across 19 states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), from the year’s first month, while five states currently lead the infection chart.
Penpushing also reports that Bayelsa State tops the chart with five confirmed cases. Cross River, Enugu and Akwa Ibom States have four cases each, and Benue State has three cases, and for suspected cases, Ogun state tops the chart with 141 suspected cases, Lagos state has 99 cases, Bayelsa state has 94 cases, Ekiti state has 47 and is followed by Osun state which has recorded 45 suspected cases this year.
Meanwhile, the number of cases in Nigeria is low when compared to countries in the Central African region, where thousands of cases have been recorded and hundreds of people killed by the disease, but this does not eliminate the risk of monkeypox in the country.
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