Reports reaching the desk of Africa Today News, New York has it that cases of monkeypox have spread to no fewer than 26 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), raising fresh fears among citizens.
This is even as experts have made a case for increased efforts by all stakeholders towards curbing the situation. Monkeypox is a viral disease transmitted from animals to humans and from humans to humans.
From January to August this year, 473 suspected cases and 172 confirmed cases have been recorded.
An analysis of situation reports from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) shows that the number of cases recorded in the country so far this year is higher than those recorded each in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. In the whole of 2017, there were 88 confirmed cases, 49 in 2018, 47 in 2019, 8 in 2020, and 34 in 2021.
Africa Today News, New York reports that since the beginning of this year, several countries have also witnessed an unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox, prompting the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus, to, July 23, declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern.
92 Countries Records 35,000 Cases Of Monkeypox, WHO
The disease has been spreading across states and the FCT over the last few months.
As of May 29, a total of 21 confirmed cases with one death were reported from nine states and the FCT. The cases rose to 36 and spread to 15 states and the FCT by June 12. Less than two weeks later, the cases grew to 41. In the epidemiological week 25 alone (June 20 to 26 2022), there were 21 positive cases out of 42 suspected cases.
By July, the number of cases had hit 157 out of 413 suspected cases with the number of affected states also rising to 25 states and the FCT.
Between July 25 and 31, a total of 24 confirmed cases of monkeypox were recorded.
As of August 7, the disease had spread to 27 states and confirmed cases risen to 172 since the beginning of the year out of 473 suspected cases. The number of deaths had also risen to four with Delta, Lagos, Ondo and Akwa Ibom recording one case each.
The latest NCDC situation report showed that in the first week of August alone, 60 suspected cases were recorded from 10 states out of which 15 new confirmed cases were recorded.
The states that have recorded monkeypox cases since the beginning of the year are Lagos (20), Ondo (16), Adamawa (13), Rivers (13), Delta (12), Bayelsa (12), Edo (9), Nasarawa (9), Anambra (7), Imo (7), Plateau (6), Taraba (5).
Others are Kwara (5), Kano (5), Abia (4), Cross River (3), Borno (3), Oyo (3), Gombe (3), Katsina (2), Kogi (2), Ogun (2), Niger (1), Bauchi (1), Akwa Ibom (1) and Ebonyi (1) as well as FCT (7).