The Director General of the Cross River State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Janet Ekpenyong has debunked reports of active cases of monkey pox in the state as reported by some online media platforms.
Ekpeyong a who spoke on a telephone interview with our Correspondent said, so far , there is no active case of Monkey Pox in any of the 18 Local Government Areas of the state , noting that, the state government is held headstrong to the detection and management of related cases noting that a well constituted health awareness and sensitization team as well as rapid surveillance team is on ground to savage any pandemic.
She urged residents in the state not to panic for any reason noting that, the health authority in the state is strongly working on preventive medical approach while advising residents to comply with medical advises given to them by the health team.
“Cross River State have always been a state with proactive approaches to outbreak responses, from the onset, we try to activate immediate search and border control measures as it can be traced as far as the Poliomyelitis control, covid-19, lassa fever where almost all of our neigbouring states recorded substantial number of cases and that will continue to be our approach to safeguard our people.
As of today May there’s no active case of monkey pox in Cross River State , we have tried every avenue to ensure that the state manage every symptoms of monkey pox especially in those Local Government Areas where we have recorded cases in the last few months, we have intensified surveillance as we actively search for people who visit our health facilities with similar symptoms and those reported by their relatives.
We only had two cases in February which were well managed by the state government , we also traced those they had one on one contact with so that we can be assured of a pandemic free state.
Not withstanding,we won’t relent in our efforts to prevent the spread of the disease since we are aware of how transmittable it can be with a lot of people coming into Cross River from states where there are active cases even in the month of May.
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We are working with our partners like world health organization, UNICEF and others who have always supported us in surveillance activities, periodic training of our health workers on how to identify and differentiate phenomenal symptoms of these prevalent diseases as we don’t limit our focus to Monkey pox alone.
We are also aware of the purported Cholerae outbreak as predicted in the state especially this raining season, we have are relying on our health promotion unit, the social mobilization team, the media and other relevant stakeholders to enhance sensitization so that people will adopt preventive measures and approaches to prevent it.
I urge us to maintain good personal and environmental hygiene in order to assist Government in Fighting these diseases as I encourage us all to report any suspected cases to the health Facility closest to them for rapid response, investigation and possible management”.
Monkeypox is caused by bites from animals or direct contacts with rodents like rats rabbits or contaminated foodstuffs from these animals and it’s easily transmittable from human to human
Early symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, a general feeling of discomfort, and exhaustion.
Later symptoms occur one to three days or more after the appearance of fever and include a rash with raised bumps, often first developing on the face.
