The Rivers State Government has confirmed two cases of the deadly monkey pox (Mpox) infection in the state.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr Adaeze Oreh, confirmed the development at a news conference in Port Harcourt on Tuesday.

Oreh said the state had already put its Public Health Emergency Operations Centre on high alert to respond to further emergencies.

“Recently, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control stated that there are 39 confirmed cases of mpox across the country.

“Out of this number, Rivers State has two confirmed cases of Mpox.

“We have deployed our medical teams to respond to all emergencies at the healthcare level, general and specialist hospitals,” she said.

The state government, Oreh said, had put in place an incident plan for Mpox as well as mobilised resources to find all the incidents of Mpox cases across the state.

She said the ministry had engaged and trained ad hoc staff to monitor and effectively combat the infection.

“The ad hoc staff now have the capacity to respond to this infection at all levels of our healthcare pillar,” she said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mpox is an illness caused by the monkeypox virus that is spread between people mainly through close contact.

It can occasionally spread from the environment to people via things and surfaces that have been touched by a person with Mpox.