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MONKEYPOX: Report about pupils being injected with virus silly –Army

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RUMOURED MONKEYPOX INJECTION: Bayelsa suspends all medical activities in schools

The Nigeria Army has refuted reports trending on social media that it has been injecting pupils in the South-East with ‘monkey pox vaccination’ allegedly to depopulate the region.

The Nigerian Army currently carrying out an exercise it code named “Operation Python Dance” in the five states of the South-East geo-political zone has been engaged in a free medical outreach, which it said was part of the force’s social responsibility to members of the public.

However, different social media platforms have been inundated in the past days that the free medicine administered by the Army on the people of the region was the cause of the monkey pox disease which started in Bayelsa State and now said to have spread to about seven other states.

Reacting to the news on Wednesday, 82 Division Nigerian Army, in a statement by its Deputy Director, Public Relations, Colonel Sagir Musa, refuted the claim.

He said, “The attention of the 82 Division Nigerian Army (NA) has been drawn to a silly and mischievous publication now trending on the social media alleging that the ongoing free medical services giving to some communities in the South-Eastern region of Nigeria is with a sinister motive of depopulating the region through the so called “monkey pox vaccination” purportedly being conducted by the NA in the region.

“The Division wishes to make it clear that the free medical outreach is not a vaccine intended to infect monkey pox or any major contemporary or emerging diseases in Nigeria to the people of South-East or any part of the country.
“The exercise is part of the corporate social responsibility initiatives imbued in to the overall Exercise EGWU EKE 11 package, to the people of the South Eastern region which is the area of responsibility of the 82 Division NA and is also the theatre of the exercise.”

Read also: MONKEYPOX: Pandemonium as parents scramble to pick kids from schools in Anambra over rumours that Army injecting pupils with virus

Earlier on Wednesday, Anambra State government reacting to the development had alleged that the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) were behind the false news and called on the people of the state to disregard it.

The state government’s reaction came following a scramble that ensued in the state where scores of parents were seen rushing to pick up their wards in schools over the allegation that military officers were invading schools and injecting students with monkey pox virus.

Recall that the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had on Monday also denied that the Federal Government was injecting Nigerians with the monkey pox virus.

 

 

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