The Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC) blames Nigerians for failure to follow preventive measures against the current spread of Monkeypox in the country. The NCDC Director of Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Dr. John Oladejo made this know on 28th June 2022 in Ibadan while speaking with journalists on the sideline of the ongoing second Ibadan Public Health conference.
“The main problem in the country, as related to these viral diseases, is the people themselves.
“When you give them instructions or protocols, they don’t follow it.
“So, at the community level, there are always behavioral problems,” he said.
Oladejo noted that the Federal government has beefed up the surveillance system for immediate focus on training healthcare workers on monkeypox surveillance and response at the state and local government levels.
“We have actually done a lot of work in terms of preparedness and activated the monkeypox emergency operations center to strengthen our preparedness and response.
“We have trained our health workers in every state of the federation.
“It was this training we did that made the states really wake up and go out for active surveillance and get new cases that were treated immediately.
“We are using a digital surveillance system and molecular laboratory to know the sequencing of Monkeypox in Nigeria.
“We have done a lot to ensure that we are able to control as well as prevent the spread of Monkeypox in the country.
“The prevalence is very low, contrary to what many people think, the total number of cases from 2017 to date is 569,” he said.
According to him, there are a number of measures that can be taken to prevent infection with the monkeypox virus, including good hand hygiene and avoiding contact with animals that could harbor the virus.
