According to Dr. Oladipo Kolawole, a medical virologist and immunologist at Adeleke University in Ede, Osun State, monkeypox is more fatal in individuals with comorbidities.
He claims that the virus can overwhelm people with comorbidities and lead to death.
The first death from the disease was reported in Nigeria in 2022, in a 40-year-old patient on immunosuppressive medicine who had underlying comorbidity.
There are numerous types of comorbidity, Kolawole stated to in a recent interview, but anyone who is immunocompromised due to a disease condition and now has monkeypox, it may be dangerous, it might lead to death.
The person's immune system is damaged, and he is unable to treat infections of this nature. As a result, the virus's potency will overwhelm the immune system of such a person, potentially resulting in death. Ideally, it is the individual's condition of health, not the monkeypox, that is to blame.
Because some therapies suppress the immune system, if the individual is exposed to a virus and contracts it, the immune system may not be strong enough to fight it.
According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, there have been 21 confirmed cases in nine states and the Federal Capital Territory: Adamawa (5), Lagos (4), Bayelsa (2), Delta (2), Cross River (2), FCT (2), Kano (2), Imo (1), and Rivers (1). (1).
According to the CDC, among the 21 cases reported so far in 2022, there has been no evidence of any novel or unusual virus transmission or alterations in clinical manifestation.
Experts encourage people to use infection prevention and control methods that have been proven to minimize the spread of the monkeypox virus.