The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) has revealed that there are 60 new suspected cases of monkeypox in its latest situation report spanning August 1 to 7, 2022, across 19 states.
In its epidemiological report made available to journalists today (August 15, 2022), the centre said that in the same week the country recorded 15 confirmed new cases.
According to the report, the 19 states are Ebonyi (8), Abia (5), Adamawa (5), Ondo (5), Taraba (5), FCT (4), Imo (4), Lagos (4), Ogun (4), Edo (3), Anambra (2), Gombe (2), Kwara (2), Rivers (2), Cross River (1), Oyo (1), Kano (1), Nasarawa (1) and Niger (1).
According to a breakdown of the 15 additional confirmed cases, Imo topped with three cases, followed by the FCT (2), Ondo (2), Rivers (2), Abia (1), Anambra (1), Ebonyi (1), Edo (1), Ogun (1) and Nasarawa (1).
The NCDC said that from January 1 to 7, August 2022, there have now been 473 suspected cases with 172 confirmed cases (115 male, 57 female) from 27 states, namely Lagos (20), Ondo (16), Adamawa (13), Rivers (13), Delta (12), Bayelsa (12), Edo (9), Nasarawa (9), Anambra (7), FCT (7), Imo (7), Plateau (6), Taraba (5), Kwara (5), Kano (5), Abia (4), Cross River (3), Borno (3), Oyo (3), Gombe (3), Katsina (2), Kogi (2), Ogun (2), Niger (1), Bauchi (1), Akwa Ibom (1) and Ebonyi (1).
The four associated deaths were recorded from 4 states – Delta (1), Lagos (1), Ondo (1) and Akwa Ibom (1) – in 2022.
“Overall, since the re-emergence of monkeypox in September 2017, 985 suspected cases have been reported from 35 states in the country.
“Of these 985 suspected cases, 398 (40.4 per cent) were confirmed (263 male, 135 female) from 30 states – Rivers (65), Bayelsa (55), Lagos (50), Delta (41), Edo (19), Cross River (17), Ondo (16), Imo (15), Adamawa (13), FCT (13), Nasarawa (11), Oyo (9), Plateau (9), Anambra (9), Akwa Ibom (8), Abia (7), Kano (5), Taraba (5), Kwara (5), Enugu (4), Borno (3), Gombe (3), Ogun (3), Benue (2), Ekiti (2), Niger (2), Katsina (2), Kogi (2), Ebonyi (2) and Bauchi (1).
“Twelve (12) deaths have been recorded (CFR= 3.0 per cent) since September 2017 in nine states – Lagos (3), Edo (2), Imo (1), Cross River (1), FCT (1), Rivers (1), Ondo (1) Delta (1) and Akwa Ibom (1),” it explained.
The NCDC said that there were ongoing efforts to strengthen surveillance at national and sub-national levels, to increase awareness and promptly detect and respond to the outbreak in the country.
Meanwhile, the director of the Centre for Human and Zoonotic Virology, Lagos University, Prof. Sunday Omilabu has urged the Federal Government to put efforts in place to acquire smallpox vaccines in the fight against monkeypox.
Omilabu said research had shown that the smallpox vaccine was effective against the monkeypox virus, which is a zoonotic virus transferred from animals to humans.
“Government should negotiate for smallpox vaccine as other European countries are doing to prevent more cases of the virus.
“People above 60 years are lucky because they got a shot of the smallpox vaccine sometime ago but people who are presently below 50 years didn’t get the shot.”
The public health expert said that the capacity and structure used for COVID-19 should not be discarded, noting that it had helped in the detection of the virus.
“We have a laboratory facility to detect this virus, as a result of the structure put in place during COVID-19. These structures should be highly maintained,” he said.
While Omilabu called for more enlightenment to educate people on monkeypox, he urged for more protection for health workers.
“Monkeypox is not as deadly as COVID-19 but it is very scary when you see people infected with the virus.
“People should be enlightened about the causes and how the virus is spread from animals to humans,” he said.
Meanwhile, the WHO recently classified the different variants of monkeypox as ‘Clades l’, ‘llA’ and ‘llB’ to avoid social and cultural offences.
