8th June, 2022
By Stanley Nwanosike
The Enugu State Government has stepped up surveillance against the spread of monkeypox in the 14 local government areas of the state.
Dr George Ugwu, the Executive Secretary of the Primary Health Care Development Agency (ENS-PHCDA), made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Enugu.
He said that disease surveillance officers in council areas had been sensitised and placed on alert to detect monkeypox.
”Three states border Enugu in the South-East region and two states in the North Central region.
”We have retrained our local disease surveillance officers on symptoms and signs to watch out for emerging and re-emerging diseases.
”Monkypox has not been detected in Enugu State, but we are not resting on our onus since we are a multi-bordered state.
“We have stepped up all perimeter of local disease surveillance against monkeypox, and other emerging and re-emerging diseases in order to safeguard the health of all in the state.
“However, we want our residents as well as individuals and families living in the state to up their personal and environmental hygiene and cleanliness levels.
“The issues of taking good care of one’s hygiene and observing those personnel and family hygiene protocols as during the heat of COVID-19 especially that of regular hand washing and sanitising.
“Our people should also be careful on how they handle or touch home pets and animals since the disease is first transmitted from animal to human as well as infected human to another normal human”.
Ugwu noted that the agency, its affiliates and partners have also sharpened their response time to any suspected case of emerging and re-emerging diseases.
NAN