A public well being professional, Olufemi Olulaja, has expressed concern that regardless of Nigeria reporting its first case of Monkeypox in 1971, it has continued to witness successive outbreaks with mortality following.
Olulaja, additionally the Secretary of the Illinois Public Well being Affiliation, lamented that the extent of Monkeypox consciousness and understanding within the nation has remained suboptimal.
The general public well being professional spoke on Saturday on the Strategic Healthcare Management Summit organized by STAR Healthcare Consultancy in Lagos, stressing the pressing want to enhance consciousness and well being schooling on the inhabitants stage.
He defined that there’s hope that the extent of information and consciousness about Mpox amongst Nigerians will be considerably elevated, main to higher management of the illness with improved communication.
“The primary and most cost-effective technique to manage Mpox outbreaks and forestall recurrence is to extend the notice of the virus among the many inhabitants,” he emphasised.
“Making certain that each one outbreak communication and well being schooling information gadgets are culturally related, revealed in native languages that persons are acquainted with and may relate to, will probably be useful in our combat in opposition to Mpox.”
In response to him, this method not solely educates the general public in regards to the illness but additionally reveals respect for his or her cultural variety, making them really feel valued and included within the combat in opposition to Monkeypox.
“Since most circumstances of Mpox are within the southern a part of the nation, outbreak communication and schooling ought to discover the usage of newspapers, social media, and tv platforms, that are the commonest means of knowledge dissemination within the area, to coach the general public in regards to the illness. Disseminating outbreak schooling by way of radio networks could also be efficient within the northern area as a result of widespread adoption of radio transmission as a way of spreading data,” he mentioned.
Olulaja additionally said that utilizing a culturally related method to disseminate outbreak schooling by way of essentially the most extensively accepted means of knowledge dissemination will probably be an efficient technique to extend public consciousness and understanding of Mpox an infection.
He, due to this fact, emphasised that authorities and media companies ought to pay ample consideration to well being data content material.
“Ideally, the content material ought to comprise data on the trigger, transmission, early signs, issues, prevention, remedy (if any), hotlines to name for assist, and present efforts by the federal government to manage the outbreak. The content material of the culturally delicate data ought to embody what is thought in regards to the illness, what’s unknown on the time of publication, present scientific efforts, and attainable outcomes,” he mentioned.
“Sadly, the frequent apply is that the majority public well being data doesn’t seize these important features.” He pressured that this apply has to alter for us to realize an optimum stage of information among the many inhabitants, making the viewers really feel the need for enchancment,” Olulaja pressured.
Explaining additional, by way of scale, Olulaja emphasised that the size of Mpox public consciousness ought to match that of the COVID-19 pandemic, which noticed Nigeria pursue an aggressive method to speaking the outbreak and educating the general public on pandemic management and preventive methods.
“This method led to widespread understanding and adoption of preventive measures, contributing to the management of the pandemic.
“Nigeria must deploy the same stage of effectiveness in addressing the communication and schooling gaps in Monkeypox management, which might result in a big discount within the variety of circumstances and higher management of the illness,” he added.
