By our Reporter
Worries over new outbreaks of a strange disease are heightening as a recently published situation report on Monkeypox by the World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that Nigeria currently accounts for 63 per cent of Monkeypox disease burden in Africa.
According to the report, while the total number of confirmed cases of Monkeypox disease in Africa between January 1, 2022 and January 1, 2023 is 1,200, the total number of confirmed cases in Nigeria in the same period is 756.
The media has gathered from the report that while the total number of deaths on the continent stands at 15, Nigeria accounts for seven.
Thus, the WHO report, published Thursday, showed that from January 1, 2022 through January 1, 2023, a cumulative total of 83,943 laboratory-confirmed cases of Monkeypox and 75 deaths have been reported to WHO from 110 countries/territories/areas in all six WHO Regions.
Then from December 26, 2022 through January 1, 2023, eight countries reported an increase in the weekly number of cases, with the highest increase reported in Mexico.
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Strictly,, “As of 2 January, 79 of the 110 affected countries have not reported new cases for over 21 days, the maximum incubation period of the disease – five more countries since the last report.
And then it said, “The number of weekly new cases reported globally has decreased by 44.6 per cent in week 52 (December 26, 2022 through January 1, 2023) (n = 373 cases) compared to week 51 (December 19 through December 25, 2022) (n = 673 cases), with the largest proportional decrease observed in the African region (-99 per cent) and the European Region (-94 per cent).
Again it was revealed that, “The high number of cases reported by the African Region in week 51 of 2022 (Figure 1) is not a sudden increase of mpox cases but represents a surveillance artifact due to the delay in the reporting of a backlog of cases occurring in the previous weeks.
Hence, “From 15 December 2022 through 1 January 2023, a total of 10 deaths were reported from Peru (eight deaths), Chile (one death), and Cameroon (one death).
But categotically, “As of January 1, 2023, the 10 countries that have reported the highest cumulative number of cases globally are the United States of America (n = 29,603), Brazil (n = 10,498), Spain (n = 7,496), France (n = 4,114), Colombia (n = 4,021), the United Kingdom (n = 3,730), Germany (n = 3,676), Peru (n = 3,643), Mexico (n = 3,637), and Canada (n = 1,460). Together, these countries account for 86 per cent of the cases reported globally,” the report stated.
