Rivers govt confirms two cases of Monkeypox

The Rivers State Government has confirmed two cases of the deadly Mpox infection in the state.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr Adaeze Oreh, made this disclosure at a news conference in Port Harcourt on Tuesday.

Oreh said the state had already put its Public Health Emergency Operations Centre on high alert to respond to further emergencies.

“Recently, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control stated that there are 39 confirmed cases of Mpox across the country.

“Out of this number, Rivers State has two confirmed cases of Mpox.

“We have deployed our medical teams to respond to all emergencies at the healthcare level, general and specialist hospitals,” she said.

According to her, the state government had put in place an incident plan for Mpox, as well as mobilized resources to find all the incidents of Mpox cases across the state.

She further stated the ministry had engaged and trained ad hoc staff to monitor and effectively combat the infection.

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“The ad hoc staff now can respond to this infection at all levels of our healthcare pillar,” she said.

PulseNets reports that Mpox is an illness caused by the monkeypox virus that is spread between people mainly through close contact, which can occasionally spread from the environment to people via things and surfaces that have been touched by a person with the disease.