Nigeria has recorded Forty confirmed Mpox cases out of Eight Hundred and Thirty suspected cases in the country with Zero death.
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The Director General NCDC Dr. Jide Idris stated this at a Joint Meeting with Stakeholders and Partners organised by the Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Prevention, NCDC, in collaboration with World Health Organisation, WHO on National Mpox Briefing, in Abuja, Nigeria’s Capital.
Dr. Idris said the aim of meeting was to brief Nigerians, Ambassadors and other diplomatic community from different countries about the current situation of the Mpox disease in Nigeria, Africa and World generally and measures to be taken to address the disease.
“The Idea is share knowledge and information to see how we collaborate together to reduce the incidence of the Mpox disease globally, in Nigeria and Africa”.
“For Nigeria we have confirmed Forty cases out of eight hundred and thirty suspected cases and we have no death at all which is encouraging” Dr. Jide Idris narrated.
On the level of information sharing the DG said, “We told the WHO and diplomatic community that, ever since the disease is declared public health emergency, we in Nigeria, we established Emergency operation Centers, (EOC) Incidence Management Operations System, (IMOS) for similar reasons for emergency actions plan in terms of what we are going to do at different areas and the cost of the action by using different pillars”.
“We also collaborate with State Governments, commissioners of health from different States in Nigeria, to let them know that at sub national level they themselves also have to establish emergency preparedness response team and capabilities and action plans and they are going to do it in conjunction with various local government areas, the essence is that, the problem we have is at sub national level”. The DG NCDC stated.
“Another key area is surveillance, of the 40 cases reported in the country, they are distributed across about 13 states. Many cases are in the South-south and South-east, with some in Lagos, Ogun, and other northern States. our plans are to target these States to reduce the number of cases and conduct active surveillance to detect more cases.” He acknowledged.
Dr. Idris also noted that the Agency needs to enhance its laboratory services, saying 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.” The DG NCDC added.
Responding to the issue, World Health Organisation, WHO Country Representative, Mr. Walter Mulombo said WHO is collaborating with Nigeria in investigating and finding solution to the Mpox disease in Nigeria and Africa.
“We join DG NCDC as he was presenting the Mpox situation in Nigeria, challenges we are facing and the opportunity up there, Nigeria and the rest of the world is responding to the call from WHO Director General and Director General Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention of this public health emergency of International concern”.
“As we know the level of exceptional alertness is required, awareness for countries to set up emergency surveillance measures, counter measures, and awareness, so that the disease will not spread”. He said.
“So we join here to give the perspectives outside Nigeria, eg some countries in Europe and Asia, so is ringing the bell on the need to remain vigilant and continue to monitor the nature coursing the disease, Nigeria is not in high risk but we need to remain vigilant”. He urged.
Concerning the vaccine Dr Mulombo highlighted “Nigeria would be receiving the number of vaccines through donations from United States of America, “the needs globally are huge and the vaccines are short supply, the capacity of the manufacturers cannot meet the global demands unless there would be some kind of interventions there”. WHO added.
