By CHARLES IWUOHA

The Enugu State Government says it has stepped up disease surveillance against emerging and re-emerging diseases in localities and council areas in the state.

Dr George Ugwu, Executive Secretary of Primary Health Care Development Agency (ENS-PHCDA), told newsmen on Sunday that disease surveillance officers at council areas had been sensitised and placed on alert on the monkey pox disease.

Monkey pox is a rare viral zoonotic infectious disease which belongs to the same orthopox-virus genius and poxviridae family of viruses as the smallpox virus.

It is an infection transmitted from animals to humans or infected humans to normal humans.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said last month that only six new confirmed positive cases were reported from four states of Bayelsa (2), Adamawa (2), Lagos (1) and Rivers (1).

Ugwu noted that the step-up of surveillance was made going because Enugu State is a multi-bordered state: three states in the South-East region and two states in the North Central region.

The Executive Secretary said local disease surveillance officers have been retrained on symptoms and signs to watch out for emerging and re-emerging diseases.

He said: “Monkey pox has not been detected in Enugu State; but we are not resting on our oars since we are a multi-bordered state.

“We have stepped up all perimeter of local disease surveillance against monkey pox, other emerging and re-emerging diseases in order to safeguard the health of all in the state.

“However, we want our residents, as well as individuals and families, living in the state to up their personal and environmental hygiene and cleanliness levels, particularly on the issues of taking good care of one’s hygiene and observing those protocols of personal and family hygiene as during the heat of COVID-19, especially that of regular hand washing and sanitising.

“Our people should also be careful on how they handle or touch home pets and animals since the disease is first transmitted from animal to human, as well as infected human to another normal human.”

Ugwu noted that the agency, its affiliates and partners had also sharpened their response time to any suspected case of emerging and re-emerging diseases.

•Enugu State Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi

Update news