Federal Government on Wednesday said the military is not involved in any monkey pox vaccination as presently rumoured.
The rumors had spread like wildfire that the military was injecting monkey pox virus to people in their medical outreach across the country.
The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole said this when he briefed State House correspondences at the end of the Federal Executive Council meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He was with the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu and the Special Adviser to the President on Media and publicity, Femi Adesina.
According to him, the eleven states are Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Ekiti, Enugu, Imo, Lagos, Nasarawa and Rivers.
While stressing that outbreak was confirmed in Bayelsa, he said that out of the 19 samples tested, 3 tested positive from Bayelsa 12 tested negative from Bayelsa, and 4 tested negative from Lagos.
He explained that the military medical outreach has never harm anyone and in some cases involved in road construction and other services.
He said “Council also received an update of the public health of the nation. We informed Council about the latest development with respect to the Monkey Pox virus outbreak. So far, as of today, there are 74 suspected cases in 11 states of the country. We have confirmed three in Bayelsa state, We are still expecting the results of other ones.
“We are also doing advance test in NEDE, that is the African Centre of Excellence for Genomes and Infections Disease to really understand the genomes of this virus. Even when they are negative, the laboratory attendance should be able to tell us what exactly they are. We will also be able to locate and identify the origin so that we can take adequate precaution.” he said
On the military vaccination rumors, he said “It is also important to use this opportunity to dispel the rumour circulating in the country that the military is vaccinating people and trying to spread monkey pox across the country. The military is not involved in any vaccination exercise and I must also really educate the Nigeria people about how vaccination campaigns are done.
“Federal will take the lead but we do not conduct campaign without involving states. So, there is no way we will do campaign for vaccination without working with the states and it is the state that will be in front and we provide support.
“The rumour that federal is involved in monkey pox vaccination campaign is not true. And as of today, we are only doing vaccination campaign in three states against other diseases.
“We are doing vaccination campaign against yellow fever in Kwara and Kogi because of yellow fever outbreak in some parts of the country. We are also doing cholera vaccination in Borno state and so anybody carrying the rumour, please help us educate Nigerians that it is not true. We are not vaccinating anybody, we plan to do missiles campaign very soon and we will also do yellow fever before the end of the year and we will let you know.
“You will never find Federal staff conducting vaccination campaign without the support and active participation of the state ministry of health, this is just to correct the misconception.” he stated
Asked whether he was disowning the military over the issue, he said “With respect to what the military is doing, I spoke about vaccination and not about military campaign. The military as part of a campaign of winning over the heart and soul of the people havel got engaged in several things. In the past, the military was noted of even constructed roads, the military will do outreaches, measure blood pressure, talk to people. These are normal things, I referred only to vaccination.
“We had to request for the assistance of the military in Borno state to reach inaccessible area with respect to the polio campaign so we have worked with the military in the past and we will continue to work with them.
“There are doctors in the military, there are nurses and when you go abroad, some of the best institutions abroad are those ones managed by the military. So we cannot disown the military. But what I want to put across is that the military is not involved in any vaccination.” he said
On the report of illegal traffickers of kidney, he said “With respect to the harvest of organs we received advice periodically from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, from National Security Adviser about goings on around the world. One of which is the harvest of organ illegally and it is our duty to alert Nigerians that this is ongoing, they should be careful, they should seek advice, they should patronize only accredited institution.
“And as we rebuild our health infrastructure there will be less need for anybody to travel out and so we spare Nigerians the agony of falling victims of some of these illegal practices.”
Speaking on the growing drug abuse among the youth, he said “We are quite aware of this. Abuse will take several forms. Abuse of substances that are smuggled into the country in higher doses than normal. For example we have metadol and tramadol and even Viagra being smuggled into the country. Look at the dosage, the Viagra dosage is three times normal and when you look at the tramadol it is three to four times normal and once NAFDAC officials come in contact, they are impounded and destroyed.
“We are also working with the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria to educate people about the abuses. We are aware of the abuse of cough mixture because of the content and we are working hard in respect to this.”
Stressing that Nigeria is part of the campaign against tobacco, he said that the country is implementing the framework convention in tobacco control.
“As of Monday we were part of the ECOWAS meeting to look at how do we raise taxes on tobacco. That meeting we really worked to prevent smuggling on tobacco products, we looked at how we can raise taxes on tobacco products. It is known that Nigeria has one of cheapest tobacco prices in the world and that will contribute to the abuse. That convention and recommendations coming from there will really contribute to raising taxes on tobacco and also generating resources that will go into health.
The Minister of Water Resources disclosed that the Council also approved the sum of N236 million for the completion of Sabke dam in Katsina state.
He said “One Memo from my ministry was considered today as part of our efforts to improve the hethrege for irrigation, we have been committing ourselves to completing many of the irrigation projects we inherited in the past two years. One of such is the Sabke irrigation project. This is a project that started as far back as 1997 during the PTF days but was abandoned and then reawarded in 2009, completed 95 percent by 2012 and again abandoned.
“When we came into office, I commissioned a technical audit of all the ongoing project and n the ministry and because of the status of that project having attained 95 percent completion, it became a priority project because it was a low hanging fruit for us to complete.
“Unfortunately, when the contractor was mobilised to site, we found out that a lot of component of the irrigation project had been vandalized and for us to be able to put that project into effective use, we now have to do a lot of rehabilitation works and we therefore brought a memo seeking Council to give us an augmentation of about N280m for us to be able to complete the work 100 percent and make it fit for the purpose and Council considered and approved this memo.”
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