Nigeria has recorded 482 cases of monkeypox and seven deaths so far in 2022.

Ifedayo Adetifa, the director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), disclosed this at a bi-weekly ministerial media conference anchored by health minister Osagie Ehanire.

Mr Adetifa said the NCDC had developed a treatment regime which could entail the option of having antiviral treatment for those at the highest risk of having severe complications, hospitalisation and death.

“People with immunosuppression fall in that category. People who have (a) dual infection with chickenpox or monkeypox at the same time fall in that category. We want to be able to reduce the sufferings in patients and the death rate while working on an integrated, one-health approach to bring monkeypox under control,” he said.

The NCDC director-general also told the conference that Nigeria had recorded 933 confirmed cases of Lassa fever in 2022, which was about two and a half times higher than the number of cases recorded in 2021.

He said there had been 173 Lassa fever deaths in 25 states and 102 local governments, with 71 per cent of the deaths recorded in Ondo, Edo and Bauchi.

“We continue to respond by providing treatment and infection prevention, as there are larger regional or international activities in terms of preparing for vaccine trials,” Mr Adetifa explained. “Early phase of the vaccine trial for Lassa fever has started in Liberia, and there have been efforts to look at clinical drug development pathways. These are all in a bid to ensure that we reduce fatality, which stands at two digits now, to hopefully a single digit.”

The NCDC director-general also said there had been 18,000 confirmed cases of measles in Nigeria and 234 resultant deaths in 2022, noting that while the outbreak of measles was not as highly reported as it was the case with other ailments, it was an ailment that was the cause of significant suffering and death of children.

He said Nigeria also recorded 10,217 cholera cases and 233 deaths in 31 states and 243 local government areas, recording the highest number of cholera cases worldwide.

“We recorded cholera infection everywhere where there were challenges with water, sanitation and hygiene, so it does not matter whether the neighbourhood looks rich or looks developed,” the NCDC head honcho further explained. “If you have challenges with water, sanitation and hygiene, cholera is not far behind. At the moment, we are about to send rapid response teams to Adamawa, Bornu, Gombe, Jigawa, Katsina and Yobe because of the rapid increases in case numbers.”

(NAN)