The Director General of the Cross River State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Janet Ekpenyong has debunked reports of active cases of monkey pox in the state as reported by some online media platforms.
Ekpenyong who spoke with our Correspondent said, so far, there is no active case of Monkey Pox in any of the 18 local government areas of the state, noting that the state government is held headstrong to the detection and management of related cases.
She also hinted that a well constituted health awareness and sensitization team as well as rapid surveillance team is on ground to savage any pandemic.
The DG urged residents in the state not to panic for any reason, adding that the health authority in the state is strongly working on preventive medical approach while advising residents to comply with medical advises given to them by the health team.
“Cross River State have always been a state with proactive approaches to outbreak responses. From the onset, we try to activate immediate search and border control measures as it can be traced as far as the Poliomyelitis control, Covid-19, Lassa Fever where almost all of our neighbouring states recorded substantial number of cases and that will continue to be our approach to safeguard our people.
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“As of today May 16th, there’s no active case of monkey pox in Cross River State. We have tried every avenue to ensure that the state manage every symptoms of monkey pox especially in those local government areas where we have recorded cases in the last few months, we have intensified surveillance as we actively search for people who visit our health facilities with similar symptoms and those reported by their relatives.
“We only had two cases in February which were well managed by the state government. We also traced those they had one on one contact with so that we can be assured of a pandemic free state.
“Notwithstanding, we won’t relent in our efforts to prevent the spread of the disease since we are aware of how transmittable it can be with a lot of people coming into Cross River from states where there are active cases even in the month of May.
“We are working with our partners like world health organization, UNICEF and others who have always supported us in surveillance activities, periodic training of our health workers on how to identify and differentiate phenomenal symptoms of these prevalent diseases as we don’t limit our focus to Monkey pox alone.
“I urge us to maintain good personal and environmental hygiene in order to assist Government in Fighting these diseases as I encourage us all to report any suspected cases to the health Facility closest to them for rapid response, investigation and possible management”.
