Ogun state government has debunked an alleged case of monkey pox credited to some national dailies and online media platforms, saying the story was a case of a false alarm raised by one of the health workers working in one of state-owned health centres.
It will be recalled that Nigeria Centre for Disease Control had said that Ogun state was part of the states which monkey pox had infected some residents, prompting media reports which listed Ogun state as an affected state, among other states of the federation with incidented cases of monkey pox.
Speaking against the reports credited to Nigeria Centre for Disease Control on the presence of monkey pox in Ogun state, Babatunde Ipaye, the Commissioner for Health, blamed the health officer that raised the false alarm and reported the alleged case of monkey pox to Federal Ministry of Health without the expected proper diagnosis.
Ipaye said the health officer who works at Ogun State General Hospital in Ijebu Ode noticed skin lesion from a patient who was at the Hospital for another primary reason and concluded that the patient had monkey pox without proper diagnosis, adding that the case was not qualified as a suspected case of monkey pox in the first instance.
The Commissioner for Health, who ruled out state’s aversion to reporting of the suspected case of monkey pox, however requested that due process and proper diagnosis must be undertaken and true position should be uncovered before any one concludes the case.
He said, “It was very surprising as the State Commissioner for Health and the Chief epidemiologist of the state to hear that Ogun State was listed, We have not incidented any confirmed case of monkey pox in the state, Ogun state doesn’t have a single case.
“Yes, there was an overzealous officer of the Ministry who saw somebody with skin lesion in state hospital, Ijebu Ode and unfortunately called the Federal Ministry of Health and incidented suspected case.
“Any patient in the category of that patient that was incidented can not be considered as a suspected case because the patient has another primary problem that can give rise to skin lesion, that is not a suspected case.
“Further questioning was even very revealing that the skin lesion the patient had was not even pathognomonic of monkey pox, it was not suggestive of monkey pox but more of another skin lesion and the screening revealed that, that negates the entire report itself.
“We are not averse to reporting one, if there is a case, and we are not willing to cover up a case but we must also not sent people panicking for things that we do not have.
“We have seen, classically the distribution of rash in monkey pox is that the rashes tends to be more on the face and symbolically at the palm and the sole of the feet, this patient has neither of those and when we did a secondary screening, we discovered that there’s even a primary reason why the patient had the rash.”
On what the state is doing to prevent the spread of the disease to the state, Ipaye said the government would continue to engage in public awareness, and urged residents to maintain high level of hygiene, adding that the state is ready to accommodate any confirmed case in any of its isolation centres.
RAZAQ AYINLA, Abeokuta
