The Edo State government on Tuesday said there is no case of monkeypox in the state amid confirmation of the viral infection by the United Kingdom health authorities in several persons, including a patient who had recently travelled from Nigeria to the country.
Following the resurgence of the disease, Uwa Okhuarobo, Edo State epidemiologist, said the state government has reactivated the necessary operational strategies to deal with likely cases of monkeypox.
Okhuarobo, in an interview with BusinessDay in Benin City, said, as precautionary measure, health workers across the 18 Local Government Areas have been trained in the past one month on surveillance activities to ensure monkeypox, just like every other priority diseases, is curtailed.
“For this year, we have only had one suspected case, and the result came out negative. So, we don’t have any record of monkeypox for now.
“Recently, surveillance officers across the state were trained on monkeypox response. Our surveillance officers across the state are now more equipped than before to carry out surveillance activities relating to monkeypox as well as any other priority disease,” Okhuarobo said.
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On the present state of Lassa fever, he said the infection rate is declining, noting that the hemorrhagic fever for the year 2022 outbreak has reached its peak and plateaued.
“As at epidemiological week 19, we recorded one case of lassa fever, which is the lowest since this year’s outbreak. The implication of this is that we are getting out of the outbreak and going into the endemic stage,” he said.
He added that the widespread of lassa fever was prevented through public health interventions such as community engagement and adoption of deratization activities in high burden local government areas.
Both Monkeypox and lassa fever are viral infections. Monkeypox belongs to the same family of smallpox, occurs in Central and West Africa, and has manifestations such as fever, rash on the face and body, intense headache, among others. Humans become infected by contact with body fluids, respiratory droplets, and contaminated materials.
Lassa fever is endemic in some West African countries and has symptoms such as fever, general weakness, and headache. It is transmitted through exposure to urine or droppings of infected rats.
