Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Ifedayo Adetifa has admonished Nigerians to avoid bushmeat to prevent monkeypox.
This was made known by the DG while speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme.
According to the DG, though there have been sporadic cases of monkeypox; there is no outbreak.
He said since the emergence of monkeypox in Nigeria in 2017, there has only been 558 cases with eight deaths, adding that only 46 suspected cases have been reported in 2022 with no death.
Adetifa, however, said Nigerians should interact with animals with care, adding that failure to do so may pose risk to health security of Nigerians.
“I think it’s important that we shun or be careful. I’d prefer to use shun in handling all bushmeat,” he said.
“The greatest risk to health security and health in general we should be careful in handling bushmeat and the likes, even rats.
“It’s part of the problem we have with Lassa Fever, we are not managing our interaction with rats.
We are not storing our foods and other things properly to avoid contamination by these animals.
“In case of monkeypox, people interact with bushmeat and other animals and the question about animals is that we know about monkeys, sort of bushmeats are involved as well.
So, I think all of them should be handled with care.
