Monkeypox: Enugu govt steps up health surveillance

The Enugu State Government has stepped up surveillance against the spread of monkeypox in the 14 local government areas of the state.

The Executive Secretary of Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. George Ugwu, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Wednesday in Enugu.

He said that disease surveillance officers in council areas had been sensitised and placed on alert to detect monkeypox.

NAN reports that Monkeypox is a rare disease that is caused by the monkeypox virus. Monkeypox virus belongs to the Orthopoxvirus genus in the family Poxviridae.

“Enugu is bordered by three states in the South-East region and two states in the North Central region.

”We have retrained our local disease surveillance officers on symptoms and signs to watch out for emerging and re-emerging diseases.

”Monkypox has not been detected in Enugu State, but we are not resting on our onus since we are a multi-bordered state.

“We have stepped up all perimeter of local disease surveillance against monkeypox, and other emerging and re-emerging diseases in order to safeguard the health of all in the state.

“However, we want our residents as well as individuals and families living in the state to up their personal and environmental hygiene and cleanliness levels.

“The issues of taking good care of one’s hygiene and observing those protocols of personnel and family hygiene as during the heat of COVID-19 especially that of regular hand washing and sanitising.

“Our people should also be careful on how they handle or touch home pets and animals since the disease is first transmitted from animal to human as well as infected human to another normal human”.

Ugwu noted that the agency, its affiliates and partners have also sharpened their response time to any suspected case of emerging and re-emerging diseases.

NAN reports the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control recently said that the country recorded 21 confirmed cases of the Monkeypox disease in the last five months with one death.

The NCDC further disclosed that in May, only six new confirmed positive cases were reported in four states with Bayelsa (two), Adamawa (two), Lagos (one), and Rivers (one).

(NAN)