The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said that there is no evidence that the reported cases of monkeypox in Nigeria were transmitted through gay sex.

The NCDC Director-General, Ifedayo Adetifa, stated this during a zoom media briefing monitored by THE WHISTLER on Tuesday.

The briefing was tagged “Monkeypox Spread, Infodemic and Public Health Response in Nigeria”

Adetifa, while responding to a question on whether or not there’s a link between gay sex and monkeypox cases in Nigeria, said “This is not the situation in Nigeria”

The question came against the backdrop of a public health advisory issued for gays and bisexuals, amongst others, by the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO had warned that “Some of these cases are being found in communities of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men,” adding that “Transgender people and gender-diverse people may also be more vulnerable in the context of the current outbreak.”

But the NCDC, in order to enable the media, health advocates, and stakeholders to better understand the Monkeypox situation in Nigeria and important facts, organized a virtual media dialogue on Monkeypox.

Its Head of Risk Communication, Disu Yahaya Oyewoga, said at the briefing that monkeypox was “more likely to become an infodemic than a pandemic with serious consequences to the world without a proactive and collective response”.

Speaking also, Dr. Lateefat Kikelomo Amao, the Incident Manager, National Monkeypox Emergency, shared a slide which stated that there was “no documented evidence of sexual transmission (of monkeypox) in Nigeria” adding that “Genomic sequencing of all positive samples ongoing and Clinical manifestations have remained the same (symptoms profile, virulence)”.

Amao said as of Tuesday, the total reported cases of monkeypox from January 1 to June 26, 2022, were 204, the total confirmed cases were 62 while the total deaths for the same period were 1 (1.6%)”

She also mentioned that there’s no vaccine for monkeypox in Nigeria at the moment, but that the WHO is working on a framework for granting access to very limited vaccine doses. Also, evidence has shown that the smallpox vaccine offers some level of protection against Monkeypox.