Stakeholder education vital for Monkeypox control – Olulaja

A public health expert, Olufemi Olulaja, has expressed concern that despite Nigeria reporting its first case of Monkeypox in 1971, it has continued to witness successive outbreaks with mortality following.

Olulaja, also the Secretary of the Illinois Public Health Association, lamented that the level of Monkeypox awareness and understanding in the country has remained suboptimal.

The public health expert spoke on Saturday at the Strategic Healthcare Leadership Summit organized by STAR Healthcare Consultancy in Lagos, stressing the urgent need to improve awareness and health education at the population level.

He explained that there is hope that the level of knowledge and awareness about Mpox among Nigerians can be significantly increased, leading to better control of the disease with improved communication.

“The first and most cost-effective strategy to control Mpox outbreaks and prevent recurrence is to increase the awareness of the virus among the population,” he emphasized.

“Ensuring that all outbreak communication and health education news items are culturally relevant, published in local languages that people are familiar with and can relate to, will be helpful in our fight against Mpox.”

According to him, this approach not only educates the public about the disease but also shows respect for their cultural diversity, making them feel valued and included in the fight against Monkeypox.

“Since most cases of Mpox are in the southern part of the country, outbreak communication and education should explore the use of newspapers, social media, and television platforms, which are the most typical means of information dissemination in the region, to educate the public about the disease. Disseminating outbreak education via radio networks may be effective in the northern region due to the widespread adoption of radio transmission as a means of spreading information,” he said.

Olulaja also stated that using a culturally relevant approach to disseminate outbreak education through the most widely accepted means of information dissemination will be an effective strategy to increase public awareness and understanding of Mpox infection.

He, therefore, emphasized that government and media agencies should pay sufficient attention to health information content.

“Ideally, the content should contain information on the cause, transmission, early symptoms, complications, prevention, treatment (if any), hotlines to call for help, and current efforts by the government to control the outbreak. The content of the culturally sensitive information should include what is known about the disease, what is unknown at the time of publication, current scientific efforts, and possible outcomes,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the common practice is that most public health information does not capture these essential aspects.” He stressed that this practice has to change for us to achieve an optimal level of knowledge among the population, making the audience feel the necessity for improvement,” Olulaja stressed.

Explaining further, in terms of scale, Olulaja emphasized that the scale of Mpox public awareness should match that of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw Nigeria pursue an aggressive approach to communicating the outbreak and educating the public on pandemic control and preventive strategies.

“This approach led to widespread understanding and adoption of preventive measures, contributing to the control of the pandemic.

“Nigeria needs to deploy a similar level of effectiveness in addressing the communication and education gaps in Monkeypox control, which can lead to a significant reduction in the number of cases and better control of the disease,” he added.