MONKEYPOX OUTBREAK IN NIGERIA

The information was disclosed by Jide Idris, the Director General of the NCDC, during a press conference on Thursday on the designation of Monkeypox as a public health emergency of global significance.

According to him, the NCDC is stepping up surveillance throughout Nigeria in order to quickly identify and address any new cases.

Idris claims that the NCDC has put all port health services on high alert, covering all five international airports, ten seaports, and fifty-one land/foot crossing borders.

He continued by saying that a few other states, including the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, Lagos, Enugu, Kano, Rivers, Cross-River, Akwa-Ibom, Adamawa, and Taraba, have also been placed on high alert. Worried by the rise in cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the spread to neighbouring countries, the World Health Organisation (WHO) designated the Monkeypox epidemic in Africa a worldwide public health emergency on Wednesday.

In order to investigate the outbreak and provide a recommendation to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the UN health agency, the WHO convened a conference of specialists.