The federal government has dismissed reports that the military was carrying out vaccination in some states and spreading Monkey pox in the areas.
This was disclosed by the minister of health, Isaac Adewole after the Federal executive council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa.
Adewole, who stated that the military is not involved in any vaccination exercise, added that the federal government cannot carry out any vaccination exercise without collaborating with state governments.
According to him, the federal government was only carrying out vaccination campaigns in Kwara and Kogi states on Yellow Fever and Cholera diseases in Borno State.
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 working states.
So, there is no way we will do campaign for without working with the states and it is the state that will be in front and we provide support. The rumour that federal is vaccination campaign is not true. And as of today, we are only doing vaccination campaign in three states.
“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 Born 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.”
“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 will get 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 also disclosed that Monkey Pox has spread to 11 states with 74 suspected cases being examined.
He listed the 11 states ravaged by the disease as Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Ekiti, Enugu, Imo, Lagos, Nasarawa and Rivers.
He also said 12 of the suspected cases in Bayelsa State tested negative while three of them tested positive and that further tests are ongoing to identify the true nature of the disease.
“Council also received an update of the public health of the nation. We informed Council about the latest development with respect to the Monkey Pod 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, and 12 of the Bayelsa suspected cases from Bayelsahi tested negative, four suspected cases from Lagos tested negative. 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 added.
On his part minister for water resources, Suleiman Adamu said FEC approved N280 million for the completion of an irrigation project started since 1997.
“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 Softcare 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 the able to complete the work 100 percent and make it fit for purpose and Council considered and approved this memo,” he stated.
Culled from Here
