Govt Tackles Spread Of Monkey Pox, Lassa Fever, Others

Dr. Olurunnimbe Mamora

The Federal Government has promised to tackle the incessant outbreak of infectious diseases in the country.

It listed monkey pox, Lassa fever and meningitis among the diseases that would be checkmated headlong.

The Minister of State for Health, Dr. Olurunnimbe Mamora, spoke on Tuesday night in Abuja at the ongoing fourth annual scientific conference of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) with the theme: Applied Epidemiology: Providing Evidence for Public Health Action.

Mamora, who noted that Nigeria had continued to experience large annual outbreaks of such diseases, said the world viewed applied epidemiology as a critical function for public health action.

He said: “In Nigeria, we have continued to experience large annual outbreaks of Lassa fever, cholera and measles as well as clusters of cases of yellow fever, meningitis and monkey pox.

“It is clear that changing environment and population dynamics along with improved capability to detect infectious cases are also increasing. Therefore, we need to build resilient health systems and continuously work on improving them to prevent, prepare, detect, respond to and control these infectious diseases’ outbreaks.

“A critical part of this resilient health system is the human resource – our field epidemiologists, laboratory scientists, managing physicians and nurses, programme managers and all health workers.

“The government of Nigeria, led by President Muhammadu Buhari, has continued to show an increased commitment to strengthening health security and universal health coverage. We look forward to the output from this conference, which will be fully supported by the Nigerian government.”

“In the Democratic Republic of Congo, between 2018 and 2019, we saw two concurrent outbreaks of Ebola, occurring within weeks of each other and in geographically dispersed areas.

“The ongoing outbreak has led to over 2,000 deaths in a country where there are also large outbreaks of monkey pox, measles, in addition to conflicts and displacement.”