New Delhi, Sep 9 (IANS) After a suspected case of monkeypox was reported in the country, health experts on Monday said there is no need to panic as the chances of the monkeypox virus (MPXV) turning into an epidemic are very low.
“There is no need to panic. I agree the mortality rate is still high, but transmission is possible only in cases of close contacts,” Dr Harshal R. Salve, Additional Professor, Centre for Community Medicine, AIIMS New Delhi, told IANS.
“The likelihood of transmission without direct contact is quite low, so the likelihood of monkeypox becoming a widespread epidemic is minimal,” he said.
Ampox is a viral disease. It causes fever and rashes on the body. After infection, lymph nodes swell or their size increases. Lymph nodes are part of the body’s immune system. Salve said that it is a self-healing disease and patients recover within four weeks.
A suspected case of ampox has been reported in India, but it is yet to be confirmed. It has spread to about 13 countries in Africa, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a global health emergency. This outbreak is primarily caused by a more deadly strain, clade 1B. It is not yet clear whether the suspected patient in India is linked to the more deadly strain of ampox.
“With the government announcing the first suspected case of MPox, everyone is worried but there is no need to panic. Since the infection is spreading only through sex or any internal physical contact, it will not become a big problem like Covid-19,” noted HIV expert Dr Ishwar Gilada told IANS.
However, he stressed the need to educate and train the medical community to manage, diagnose and detect ampox, and to increase the number of laboratories and the effectiveness of their workload.
Dr Gilada, consultant on HIV/STD at Unison Medicare and Research Centre, Mumbai, urged to start manufacturing of the Mpox vaccine, which could help not only India but also low and middle-income countries.
He also called for “such people to be given smallpox vaccination on priority basis as this may show some improvement in the cases of smallpox.”
The central government said on Sunday that symptoms of monkeypox (ampox) have been found in a young man. The patient has been kept in isolation in a hospital. This is the first suspected case of monkeypox in the country.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a statement that the young man who has been found to have symptoms of ampox had recently returned from a visit to an infection-affected country.
The ministry said, “The patient has been isolated in a designated hospital and is currently in stable condition.” However, the ministry has not disclosed which country the young man had visited. Also, which state he is from has also not been disclosed.
–IANS
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