The World Health Organisation has said that Nigeria has highest Monkeypox death toll confirmed cases in Africa.
This was revealed by the WHO’s Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, on Thursday during a virtual press briefing captioned ‘Road to defeating Meningitis by 2030.’
The director revealed that Nigeria recorded half of the fatalities linked to the disease, with others reported in Ghana and in the Central African Republic.
The Independent quoted Moeti as saying:
“For monkeypox, there have now been 524 confirmed cases and 12 deaths across 11 African countries.
“The majority of cases are in Nigeria, DRC & Ghana. Of the 12 deaths, six occurred in Nigeria, four in Ghana, and two in the Central African Republic.
“Although no single monkeypox vaccine has been administered to any high-risk group in any of the African countries reporting cases, WHO has provided 39,000 test kits to countries, enabling improved testing rates.”
Also, report has it that that its checks on the death toll of the disease showed that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had not updated the data on its official website.
The last situation report on monkeypox dated August 14 and published by the NCDC showed that Nigeria had four deaths linked to the disease at the time.
The centre in the report quoted by Independent stated that the four deaths were recorded in four states while 29 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) reported 530 suspected cases of monkeypox in 32 weeks.
“From 1st January to 14th August 2022, Nigeria has recorded 530 suspected cases with 220 confirmed cases (144 male, 76 female) from 29 states – Lagos (35), Ondo (18), Rivers (16), Bayelsa (14), Adamawa (13), Delta (12), Edo (12), FCT (10), Abia (nine), Nasarawa (nine), Anambra (eight), Imo (eight), Ogun (seven), Plateau (six), Taraba (five), Kwara (five), Kano (five), Gombe (four), Cross River (four), Oyo (four), Borno (three), Benue (three), Katsina (three), Kogi (two), Niger (one), Bauchi (one), Akwa Ibom (one), Ebonyi (one) and Osun (one),” the NCDC said.
“Four associated deaths were recorded from four states in 2022 – Delta (one), Lagos (one), Ondo (one), and Akwa Ibom (one).”