The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has donated 10,000 Jynneous vaccines to Nigeria as part of the efforts to curtail the spread of the highly contagious disease in the country.
Speaking at the official delivery of the vaccines on Tuesday, the Director General of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NHPCDA) Dr. Muyi Aina, disclosed that the distribution of the vaccines will commence immediately and priority will be given to frontline health workers and states with the highest prevalence of the deadly disease.
Dr. Aina profusely thanked the United States government for the support and promised to ensure the judicious use of the vaccines which he said will help save lives and curb the spread of monkey pox virus in the country.
The Crest recalls that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, had, last Friday, announced that so far, the country had confirmed 40 cases of MPox infection but zero death out of 830 suspected cases recorded across 33 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
Director General of the NCDC, Dr. Jide Idris, made the revelation at a press briefing on the declaration of MPox as a public health emergency, said that the NCDC was intensifying surveillance across Nigeria to swiftly detect and respond to new cases.
He said the NCDC has put all port health services at all five international airports, 10 seaports, and 51 land/foot crossing borders on high alert.
Some states have also been put on high alert. These include: Lagos, Enugu, Kano, Rivers, Cross-River, Akwa-Ibom, Adamawa, Taraba, and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
Idris’ exact words: “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 detect more cases.”
The World Health Organisation, WHO, recently declared the MPox prevalence in Africa as a global public health emergency of international concern, worried stiff about the sudden increase in cases of infections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, as well as the spread to nearby countries.
The decision by WHO came on the heels of the declaration of the growing outbreak as a public health emergency by the African Union’s health watchdog.
Mpox has swept through the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the virus formerly called monkeypox was first discovered in humans in 1970, and spread to other countries.
More than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths have been reported so far this year in DRC, exceeding last year’s total.