By Ibironke Ariyo
The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has confirmed that there are no cases of Mpox in its 256 custodial centres across the country.
Abubakar Umar, Assistant Controller of Corrections, (ACC) Service Public Relations Officer (SPRO) disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja.
Nigeria has reported 48 mpox cases in 19 states and in FCT, without death record, according to the NCDC.
On August 27, Nigeria received 10,000 doses of vaccines from the US government to control the outbreak.
Although Nigeria previously treated isolated cases from the virus, the current outbreak has aggravated the situation, requiring a more urgent and concerted response.
However, Umar has attributed the success of the Service to proactive measures taken to prevent the outbreak of diseases, including compliance with medical directives, robust sanitation systems and proper water supply.
He also revealed that the service was also working in synergy with state governments and the Ministry of Health to prevent the outbreak of Mpox in all Nigeria detention centers.
According to him, one of the things you can’t eliminate with NCoS is the proactive measures that are taken to really prevent the outbreak of any illness in our detention centers.
“One of the many measures is the sanitary hygiene of detention centers, which is to ensure that all the measures necessary to comply with medical personnel guidelines are taken seriously.
“Also we have a robust system in which, once we detect an outbreak overseas, we take proactive steps not to allow employees or inmates to contact or approach infected or who may be infected.
“But most important the service has activated over the years is the issue of preventive measures, because we will ensure that a suitable sanitation and water system is provided in our detention centers.
“That because most of these diseases have to do with what we call environmental problem and contact with an infected person and we have a good, solid history judging from the past.
“We’ve never had such outbreak of this guy in our detention centers and this will not be an exception, as NCoS Controller General Haliru Nababa has secured,” he said.
Umar stated that the evident progressive changes in NCoS were the result of the deliberate efforts of President Bola Tinubu’s administration to address the neglect of the past.
This, he said, was due to the improvement of budgetary provisions, the modernization of infrastructure, the improvement of logistics, the welfare of employees and inmates, among other considerations.
He assured that the service would keep an infection-free regime at its detention centers, adding that the Minister of Internal Administration, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo and NCoS CG, were doing all that was necessary to ensure that Mpox would not spread to the detention centers.
He said: “As I said before, we are doing everything we can to ensure we never witness something like this in our detention centers as a result of proactive measures taken by our service through effective coordination of our medical staff.
“This aims to ensure that the issue of sanitation is taken seriously in our detention centers and also ensure that water supply to our detention centers does not pose a danger to inmates.
“This also includes the provision of necessary medical assistance to our high-level detention centers and even those who do not risk contracting the smallpox. We are doing a lot. There are no cases of Mpox in detention centers.
“The Service also undertook the construction of three high-capacity prison units, with 3,000 cells each, in three geopolitical zones of the country.
“They are located in Kano (Northwest), Karshi-Abuja (North Center) and Bori Rivers State (South-South), in a bid to face the challenges facing NCoS in inmate housing.
“We are in partnership with state governments, such as the Ministry of Health in some of these states, to ensure that we work in synergy with them.
“This is to make sure we don’t have such an outbreak, because if it occurred, you’d talk a lot in the community where our correctional facilities are located,” he said.
