The Cross River state government has said reports in the social media on purported outbreak of monkey pox cases in the state are false.
The director general of the state Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Janet Ekpenyong, said this in Calabar, Monday, in a telephone interview with our reporter.
Dr. Ekpenyong said the 18 local government areas of the state were completely free of the disease due to sustained health awareness/ sensitization campaign as well as the work of the rapid surveillance team which, she said, is on ground to handle any emergency.
She said: “Social media report of outbreak of monkey pox in Cross River state is false. We have always been proactive in approaches to outbreak responses from poliomyelitis control, COVID-19, Lassa fever amongst others. As of today, there is no active case of monkey pox in Cross River state.
“We have tried every avenue to ensure that the state manages every symptoms of monkey pox especially in those local government areas where we have recorded cases in the last few months. We have intensified surveillance as we actively search for people who visit our health facilities with similar symptoms and those reported by their relatives.
“We only had two cases in February which were well managed by the state government. We also traced those they had one on one contact with so that we can be assured of a pandemic free state.
“Notwithstanding, we won’t relent in our efforts to prevent the spread of the disease since we are aware of how transmittable it could be with a lot of people coming into Cross River from states where there are active cases even in the month of May.
“We are working with our partners like World Health Organization, UNICEF and others who have always supported us in surveillance activities, periodic training of our health workers on how to identify and differentiate phenomenal symptoms of these prevalent diseases as we don’t limit our focus to Monkey pox alone.”
