Monkey Pox: Nigeria to get confirmatory test results today

-Confirmatory lab results which will confirm the actual status of the monkey pox disease are expected in the country today.

-The delay in getting the result has been attributed to the absence of capable public laboratories in the country.

Nigeria is expected to take delivery of laboratory test results which will confirm the actual status of the monkey pox disease in Nigeria.

The national coordinator, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, disclosed this on Tuesday while responding to questions from members of the Senate Committee on Primary Health Care and Communicable Disease.

He appeared before the committee based on an invitation extended to him to brief them on the current situation of monkey pox disease in the country.

According to the NCDC boss, results from the lab tests will confirm if the disease is actually present in the country or not.

“We are confident that we have identified all the cases related to the issue in Bayelsa.

“We’ve sent samples from Bayelsa to the laboratory and we are expecting the result before the end of tomorrow (Friday) when we’ll be able to state categorically whether it is monkey pox or not.”

“The risk in human is not actually in eating the meat, the risk is in preparing, killing it, cutting it and not properly washing your hands.”

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“Very few people die from the disease and we have not recorded any death. It is under control. We don’t think all reported cases in other states are monkey pox but we have a responsibility to investigate all the cases.”

Mr. Ihekweazu also disclosed the delay in confirmation is due to the absence of any public laboratory capable of diagnosing the disease.

“We set up an emergency centre at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control where we are coordinating the entire response, getting information from states, advising them on what samples to collect and sending those samples to the laboratory we have in Nigeria and the one in Dakar where they are doing the diagnosis for us.”

“Monkey pox is a very rare disease. It last occurred in Nigeria in the 70s. So, most laboratories don’t have the capacity to make this diagnosis.”

“It is only one lab in Redeemers University that has capacity to do the diagnosis in Nigeria. The other lab in West Africa is in Dakar. So, we have split the samples, sent half to Redeemers and half to Dakar.