Parents withdraw kids from Southeast schools over monkeypox injection rumour
Pandemonium broke yesterday across some cities in Anambra, Abia, Ebonyi and Delta states following a rumor that monkeypox substances were being administered on school children in the Southeast by the military, purportedly ‘to reduce the population of the Igbo.’
The rumor which went viral in the social media as early as 9 am, had it that the soldiers were in the state to inject children with a vaccine, said to be ‘similar to what was carried out in Bayelsa State’ that allegedly resulted to the monkey pox disease spread.
Parents immediately stormed various schools in the state to withdraw their children.
Meanwhile, the Anambra State government has called for calm, saying there was no truth in the rumour that soldiers were death.
A press release signed by the Secretary to State Government, Prof Solo Chukwulobelu, stated that the military health outreach was a wellintentioned exercise.
The Army has also insisted that there was no truth in the rumour.
Deputy Director of Public Relations 82 Division, Colonel Musa Sagir, insisted that the free medical outreach was not a vaccine intended to infect monkeypox or any contemporary or emerging diseases in Nigeria to the people of South East or any part of the country.
In Abia State, public and private schools in Umuahia and its environs were forced to release their students and pupils to their parents.
At 12 noon when the rumour broke, parents and guardians besieged schools demanding the release of their children.
The rumour had spread that the army injecting children to had embarked on vaccination of school children with deadly vaccine.
Ease of mind only returned to some quarters in the state when the reaction of the Deputy Director of Public Relations 82 Division, Colonel Sagir Musa, was released.
There was panic alsoin Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, over the monkeypox scare.
Responding, the Ebonyi State Commissioner for Health, Dr Daniel Umezurike asked the people to disregard the rumour.
In the Delta State capital Asaba, panic-stricken parents scampered to primary and secondary schools to withdraw their children.
The state Commissioner of Information, Mr. Pat Ukah, had to cut short an official media engagement to attend to the matter, saying in a statement that there was no truth to the rumour “as there is no vaccination currently going on in schools across the state.”