Reports of US spreading Monkeypox pure lies, says embassy

The social media speculations that the US-controlled laboratories are being used to spread Monkeypox in Nigeria are not true, says the United States of America.

The embassy in Nigeria in a statement explained that rather, the collaborative work between Nigeria and the US had provided opportunities for technical assistance in capacity building, equipment and funding to public health programme, hospitals and laboratories which had contribute to the prevention of global disease outbreaks.

It added that the “misleading posts on social media wrongly speculate on the origin of the current global outbreak of Monkeypox disease and supposedly call for the World Health Organisation to investigate the so-called ‘US-controlled laboratories’ in Nigeria.”

The statement added, “Such reports are pure fabrication. There is zero merit to any allegations regarding the use of US-assisted Nigerian laboratories in the spread of Monkeypox.  Furthermore, there are no ‘US-controlled’ laboratories in Nigeria.

“These falsehoods detract from the work that the United States, in close coordination with Nigeria and multilateral partners, accomplish together on public health that includes disease surveillance, diagnosis, prevention, and control.”