Monkeypox: Expert Warns Nigerians To Avoid Bushmeat
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NCDC has warned Nigerians to avoid bushmeat. The disease control body said that this would help prevent monkeypox.
The Director-General of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa disclosed this on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme.
His words:
“I think it is important that we be careful – I’d prefer to shun – but also careful in handling all bushmeat.
“The greatest risk to health security as you know is going to be zoonotic diseases and zoonotic illnesses are like Sars-Cov-2 like pathogens that primarily affect animals but acquire the capability to humans and what happens thereafter is if they change once they infect the first humans, they become more effective in person-to-person transmission. So we should be careful.”
Prof Adetifa said that while there had been cases of monkeypox, no death was recorded.
He continued;
“The first thing to say is there’s no outbreak of monkeypox.
“The term outbreak is being used wrongly, yes we are having cases of monkeypox just like we have continued to have had monkeypox cases since it re-emerged in 2017.
“Since 2017 till date, we have had about 558 monkeypox cases with about 8 deaths. This year alone we have 46 suspected cases reported and about eight cases confirmed with no death.
“We know there are a few suspected cases reported from here and there and we are waiting for lab results from the national reference lab.
“So, the occurrence of sporadic cases of monkeypox is not surprising and does not constitute an outbreak.
“But yes, we are worried about monkeypox, and as you know its closest relation is the smallpox virus.
“We are worried that it potentially can change from something being sporadic, or something that is not very good at person-to-person transmission to something that can give us a cause for concern which is why we continue to keep an eye on it.”
Also, the World Health Organization has raised concerns about the virus being dominant in Nigeria.
It warned that Nigeria is susceptible to the spread of monkeypox.
The UN health agency made this known after the UK detected monkeypox from a Nigerian traveller.
It said the traveller is a UK resident who visited Nigeria on April 20 and departed on May 3.
The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention defines Monkeypox as a rare disease caused by the monkeypox virus.
The infection is spread from animals to humans and humans to humans.
Symptoms
The symptoms usually last for two to four weeks.
Source: Punch HealthWise
