Lara Adejoro The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday announced that the country has recorded a total of 40 confirmed cases of mpox out of 830 suspected cases. NCDC Director-General, Dr Jide Idris, made this announcement at the Joint NCDC/World Health Organisation National Mpox briefing with stakeholders and partners in Abuja. The WHO Nigeria Country Office disclosed that Nigeria would be receiving doses of the mpox vaccine through a donation from the United States Government.
Idris noted that an Emergency Operations Centre and an Incident Management System have been established since mpox was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Idris explained, “Currently, we have 40 confirmed cases out of 830 suspected cases. We have not recorded any deaths, which is remarkable.
We have developed an incident action plan to address each area, using various pillars. “We have met with state governments and state Commissioners of Health to advise them on establishing their emergency preparedness and response teams, capabilities, and action plans. They will coordinate this with their respective Local Government Areas.
“Another key area is surveillance. Of the 40 cases reported in the country, they are distributed across about 12 or 13 states. Many cases are in the South-South and South-East, with some in Lagos, Ogun, and other northern areas.
Our plans are to target these states to reduce the number of cases and conduct active surveillance to.