DAKAR, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) — Senegal has deployed “at the national level” its surveillance system to deal with the possibility of the appearance of the mpox virus (monkeypox), APS reported on Friday, citing the chief physician of the Surveillance and Vaccine Response Division at the Prevention Directorate of the Ministry of Health and Social Action, Dr. Boly Diop.
“The surveillance system is already in place at the national level and has been strengthened at the level of the 46 priority districts that have been identified,” Dr. Boly Diop told APS.
Most of these districts are located in border areas, and “the system is reinforced at the port and the airport,” he added, recalling that the Ministry of Health and Social Action had activated, at the beginning of the week, the Health Emergency Operations Center (COUS), “following the declaration of the public health emergency of international concern on mpox”, by the World Health Organization.
This initiative aims to “strengthen prevention and control measures in order to protect the population and limit the spread of the virus,” he explained, assuring that “no case (of mpox) has been declared in Senegal.”
Dismissing the rumour that the disease was brought into the country by an infected person from Ghana, he stressed that “this rumour was unfounded for the simple reason that Ghana has not recorded any case of monkeypox either.” End
