Tag: Health

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said sexual intercourse happens to be a mode of Monkeypox transmission.   NCDC stated this in a post on its website on Thursday.   The post read, “Symptoms of the illness include fever, headache, body aches, weakness, swollen lymph nodes (glands) and a rash.   After about 1 to 3 days of fever, the ash erupts, beginning on the face and then spreading to the body with the face and palms/soles being mostly affected.   “They can also occur in and around the genitals which is why contact during sex is one mode of transmission. It is mostly a self-limiting illness that often lasts for two to four weeks.”   According to NCDC, no fewer than 21 cases had been confirmed but countries such as the United Kingdom, the US, Portugal, Spain, Israel, Lebanon and Canada among others have reported cases.   The World Health Organisation, in a statement it released last week, noted that the outbreak of the Monkeypox disease is being discovered in countries where it is not endemic.   A Professor of Medical Virology, University of Maiduguri, Prof Marycelin Baba, explained that the disease could be transmitted through skin contact.   “There is a risk of human to human transmission. If you have someone around you who has the infection, it is very easy for you to get infected and sex cannot be ruled out because there is contact,” Baba said.   Also, a medical virologist and immunologist at the Adeleke University, Ede, Osun State, Dr Oladipo Kolawole, asserted that Monkeypox can overwhelm patients with co-morbidity (existence of more than one disease or condition within the body at the same time) and can lead to death.   Kolawole said, “There are different types of co-morbidity but anybody that is immunocompromised due to a certain disease condition and now has Monkeypox may suffer the possibility of death.   “The meaning is that the person’s immune system is immunocompromised; he cannot handle such infections. So, the power of the virus will overwhelm the immune system of such an individual which may lead to death.”   Monkeypox is a disease endemic to West and Central African countries, can be transmitted through sexual intercourse, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has warned.   TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) gathered that the disease is deadlier in patients suffering from other diseases.   Monkeypox is caused by infection with the monkeypox virus and belongs to the Orthopoxvirus genus in the family Poxviridae.   The disease has recently surfaced in some European countries, with 66 suspected cases reported so far in Nigeria in 2022.