Medical Doctor, 10 Others Quarantined As Monkeypox Hits Bayelsa

Fear has gripped the residents of Bayelsa State as a deadly viral epidemic known as "monkeypox" has broken out in the state.

According to the World Health Organisation, monkeypox is a rare disease that occurs primarily in remote parts of Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests.


"The monkeypox virus can cause a fatal illness in humans and, although it is similar to human smallpox which has been eradicated, it is much milder," WHO says.

It was authoritatively learnt that a medical doctor and 10 persons who came down with the monkeypox had been quarantined in an isolation centre at the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital, Okolobiri, in Yenagoa Local Government Area of the state.

Symptoms of monkeypox include: severe headache, fever, back pains, etc. Most worrisome of all the signs are rashes bigger than those caused by chicken pox.

The disease is said to have an incubation period and it is also self-limiting in the sense that within two to four weeks, you get healed and it confers you with immunity for life.