The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said the capacity of the current manufacturers of Mpox vaccine cannot meet global demand unless there was some form of intervention to scale up production.
According to the organisation, reports on the Mpox disease spread still showed that the epicenter for the new emergency of international concern was in Central Africa and neighboring countries.
The WHO Country Director in Nigeria, Dr. Walter Mulombo, stated this Abuja, while giving an update on efforts being made to control the virus.
With regard to the situation in Nigeria, Mulombo said the country was presently not at high risk.
“It’s moderate risk, but we need to continue to remain vigilant because we’ve cases reported as far as Europe or Asia and Nigeria is not safe until this overall event is safe.
“So, we’ll continue to work with the government to strengthen public health measures that are needed to control the outbreak. Well, you’ve heard that Nigeria will be receiving a number of doses of vaccine through donation from the U.S. government. The needs globally are huge.
“The vaccine is in short supply, the capacity of the current manufacturer cannot meet the global demand unless some kind of intervention is there.
“So, I’m sure the U.S. government will be able to inform on the date of arrival. We’ve heard from National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) representative, the vaccination strategy, which is in line with the recommendation of WHO to target the people at highest risk and those who have the disease and their contacts as well as their workers.
The WHO director said laboratories in Nigeria would be optimised to get the patients tested if more spread of the virus is reported.
“The good news, is we are building on a system that’s already strong as a result of exposure to COVID-19 pandemic. We have a lot of molecular labs. It’s just a matter of scaling a bit the capability and which I think is within Nigeria’s reach anyway,” he said.
On its part, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said the country currently has 40 confirmed cases of Mpox with no deaths out of 830 suspected cases.
The centre also said that the cases were found in about 13 states including Ogun, Lagos, South-South, South East, and Northern parts of the country.
It said that all the cases of Mpox we have in Nigeria are the class 2B type, the less serious type.
In addition, NCDC said that it plans to target those states through active surveillance to reduce the number of cases,
Onyebuchi Ezigbo
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