Smallpox was high on my radar again after the 2017 Evans horsepox experiment, which proved that smallpox could be synthesised in a lab. It was the same year that monkeypox began causing large epidemics in Nigeria.

These were the warning bells that should have prompted our government to prepare and stockpile newer drugs and vaccines. When monkeypox hit our shores, we had no antivirals or third-generation vaccines.