By Princess-Ekwi Ajide, Abuja
The World Health Organisation, WHO, has warned against stigmatisation and discrimination against patients affected by Monkey pox.
The Director General of WHO, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, gave the warning during a virtual press conference of the 2nd meeting of the International Health Regulations (IHR) Emergency Committee regarding the multi-country outbreak of Monkey pox.
According to him, WHO has reported 3040 cases of monkey pox from 47 countries since the outbreak of Monkey pox, adding that the outbreak has continued to grow and there are now more than 16 thousand reported cases from 75 countries and territories, and five deaths so far.
He noted that Nigeria recorded a little over 800 cases of the virus between September 2017 and 10th July, 2022 and has seen at least 3% case fatality ratio among confirmed cases.
The cases WHO records, are predominantly in men aged between 31 and 40 years without evidence of sexual transmission with 2022 recording the highest number of annually reported cases since 2017.
The Director General of WHO stressed that the focus of interventions should be on promoting voluntary self-reporting and care seeking behaviour to facilitate timely access to quality clinical care and to protect human rights, privacy and dignity of affected individuals and their contacts across all communities.
A recent WHO report had indicated that imported cases of Monkey pox in the human population experiencing human-to-human transmission of Monkey pox virus, including in key population groups and communities are at high risk of exposure.
