The Monkey Pox Scare
Nigerians are now used to periodic disease epidemics, some deadly, some not so deadly, so the latest scare over the outbreak of monkey pox is only the latest in a long line. Trouble is, we are not yet sure what we are dealing with in this country. While the National Centre for Disease Control [NCDC] in Abuja has said 31 cases of monkey pox viral infection have been recorded in Ekiti, Akwa Ibom, Lagos, Ogun, Bayelsa, Rivers and Cross River States, Minister of Health Prof. Isaac Adewole has said cases of monkey pox reported in different parts of the country are only a suspicion for now. They can only be confirmed after laboratory tests, he said.
Monkey pox is a rare viral zoonotic disease that occurs primarily in remote parts of Central and West Africa, near tropical rain forests, with symptoms very similar to smallpox. The good news is that it is much less deadly. In fact, not one of the patients suspected to have contracted it in seven states has died, compared to Ebola which killed victims by the thousands in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Given our experience with Ebola only a few years ago, it is easy to understand why Nigerians are worried by any new disease outbreak, which is also why we expect our health authorities to respond urgently and efficiently to this latest scare.
That said, the stampede that occurred in several South Eastern states last Wednesday was a clear case of how far mischief makers could go to capitalise on a worrisome disease outbreak and further their nefarious political agenda. Based on a rumour that was spread on the social media and by word of mouth, thousands of parents in Enugu, Anambra, Ebonyi, Imo and Abia states descended on schools all over the region and demanded to take away their children. The rumour mongers had said men in Nigeria Army uniforms had entered some schools and forcibly administered “vaccination” on schoolchildren with what was alleged to be monkey pox. The clever rumour mongers capitalised on the fact that the Army was launching free medical service in the region as a component of Operation Python Dance. State and local governments in the affected states had to make frantic efforts and announcements on radio and television telling people the rumour was just that and all children were safe. Colonel Sagir Musa, spokesman of the Army’s 82 Division condemned the rumour and said the army was not doing any immunisation but was offering free health services, including distribution of food to the needy.
That anyone will believe that rumour attests to the high level of illiteracy, poor quality education, deep suspicion as well as conspiracy theorising that pervade Nigerian society. Otherwise, anyone should ask how the Army, which is made up of people from all parts of the country, could possible conspire to inject poison into Nigerian children in order, it was alleged, to depopulate “Biafra.” Openly fuelling the rumour for evil political purposes was the banned Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB. The illegal group’s so-called Media and Publicity Officer, one Emma Powerful, said in a statement that “the present All Progressives Congress, APC, government and Nigerian Army are determined to kill as many Biafrans as possible in Anambra State and South East in general.” He also said, “Our children are now at the front line of a major biological warfare waged by Hausa Fulani Islamic government seeking to kill as many Biafrans as possible out of pure hatred and bigotry.”
Undue hysteria fuelled by secessionist mischief makers aside, the response of our health authorities to this monkey pox scare leaves much to be desired. More than two weeks since the disease was first reported in Bayelsa State, authorities are still treating it as a “suspicion.” NCDC’s National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu said in a statement last Monday that the agency was awaiting the laboratory results and confirmation of the 31 suspected cases. He said, “Samples have been collected from each suspected case for laboratory confirmation. Results are still awaited. So far, there have been no deaths recorded. It is unlikely that many of the suspected cases are actually monkey pox but all are being investigated.”
The big revelation that came out it is that Nigeria has no lab that can make a definitive finding on these samples taken from patients. Both the Health Minister and NCDC tried to justify this by saying monkey pox is new in Nigeria and we have no labs to test for it. The samples had to be taken to Senegal, according to them because that West African country once experienced a monkey pox outbreak and therefore has the lab facilities. The reason why this excuse is hard to stomach is because even with respect to a disease that has been around Nigeria for five decades, namely Lassa fever, we still have only one centre in Benin that can diagnose it. It might therefore take us decades before we establish a monkey pox diagnostic centre, the way we do things here.
We therefore urge the Federal Government, health authorities, state and local governments to ramp up their response to monkey pox before it leads to a much uglier scenario in the near future. We might be lucky that monkey pox is uglier in its symptoms than it is deadly and nowhere as ravaging as Ebola, but it is bad enough to warrant national emergency response. Nigeria won high praise from international health authorities for its response to the Ebola outbreak. We should replicate that achievement now.