The Federal Government says there is no confirmed case of monkeypox virus in Lagos state even as all the results obtained from suspected cases tested negative. Last week, Jide Idris, the state commissioner for health, announced that there were two suspected cases of the virus.
But addressing a press conference on Monday, Isaac Adewole, Minister of Health, said all the monkeypox test samples obtained from the state tested negative. Adewole also said four cases of the virus had been confirmed in Bayelsa, where the first case was recorded.
He added that 43 suspected cases have so far been reported in eight other states. “Since our initial announcement, a total of 43 other suspected cases (of the virus) have been reported from eight other states — Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Ekiti, Lagos, Enugu, Nasarawa, Rivers, and FCT. Of these, four cases from Lagos have also been tested and confirmed to be negative for the Monkeypox virus,” he said.
“As of October 13, 2017, there were 17 suspected cases reported from Yenagoa local government area in Bayelsa state. We have received laboratory confirmation for monkeypox virus from three of these cases from the WHO regional laboratory in Dakar, Senegal. Samples from 12 other cases from Bayelsa were negative. With these results, four suspected Monkeypox outbreak in Yenagoa have been confirmed with laboratory evidence. The most likely source of infection is a primary zoonotic transmission, from an animal, with secondary person-to-person transmission. We expect that many of these cases being reported from other states in Nigeria are not caused by the monkeypox virus, but we will continue to investigate all those cases that fit the case definition.”
He noted that further laboratory tests using whole genome sequencing are being carried out by the Africa Centre For Genomics and Infectious Diseases in Redeemers University, Ede, Osun State, Nigeria.
