By Blessing Odega
The Plateau government has said that the state has recorded two positive cases of monkey pox in Shendam and Bassa Local Government areas.
Plateau’s commissioner for Health, Dr Nimkong Lar, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Jos.
He said that the patient from Shendam was treated and discharged while the patient from Bassa was responding to treatment.
According to the commissioner, the ministry has embarked on health education to sensitise the populace to monkey pox outbreak.
He said the sensitisation was on the importance of imbibing the act of hand washing and maintaining good hygiene as measures of containing the disease.
He also cautioned health workers to ensure they used Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the treatment of infected persons to avoid the spread of the disease.
The commissioner said that the disease is primarily transmitted from animal to man, while the secondary source of transmission is through human to human contact.
Lar called on the citizens to report any sign of unexplained rashes to the nearest health facility.
He further cautioned that the public should ensure they drank potable water, washed fruits and vegetables properly and shunned the act of open defecation.
He said the measures were to avoid the spread of gastrointestinal diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea.
He also called on the members of the public to report promptly the cases of stooling and vomiting to the nearest health facility.(NAN)
