monkeypox
NCDC reports 60 suspected new monkeypox cases
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has reported 60 new suspected cases of monkeypox in its latest situation report covering August 1 to 7 in 18 states of the federation and Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
In its epidemiological report released, Monday, in Abuja, the centre stated that in the same week, the country recorded 15 confirmed new cases.
The NCDC listed the affected states as: Ebonyi, FCT, Abia, Adamawa, Ondo, Taraba, Imo and Lagos.
Others are Ogun, Edo, Anambra, Gombe, Kwara, Rivers, Cross River, Oyo, Kano, Nasarawa and Niger states.
The centre added that in the breakdown of the 15 additional confirmed cases, Imo topped with three cases, followed by the FCT with two, Ondo with two, and Rivers, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Edo, Ogun, and Nasarawa states with one case each.
The public health agency stated that from January 1 to August 7, there were 473 suspected cases with 172 confirmed cases (115 males, 57 females) from 27 states.
It added that “overall, since the re-emergence of monkeypox in September 2017, a total of 985 suspected cases have been reported from 35 states in the country.
“Of the 985 suspected cases, 398 (40.4 per cent) were confirmed, 263 males, 135 females from 30 states.
“Also, 12 deaths have been recorded since September 2017 in nine states.”
The NCDC said that there were ongoing efforts to strengthen surveillance at national and sub-national levels to increase awareness, and to promptly detect and respond to any outbreak.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has since upgraded the monkeypox outbeak to a pandemic status.
However, the majority of the recent cases have been detected in gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men, particularly in non-endemic countries.
WHO, however, maintained that anyone can contract the virus and that there is currently no evidence that monkeypox is a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD).
The world body, however, said that “human-to-human transmission can result from close contact with respiratory secretions, skin lesions of an infected person or recently contaminated objects.
“The common symptoms associated with monkeypox are swollen lymph nodes, fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches.”
Also, WHO recently classified the different variants of monkeypox as Clades l, llA and llB to avoid social, and cultural offence.
