Team News Riveting
Kochi, July 14
A traveller who landed in Kerala three days ago from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had showed the symptoms of monkeypox.
Kerala’s Health Minister Veena George said the person had been hospitalised and samples have been sent for testing to the National Institute of Virology in Pune. The case could be confirmed only after getting the report of the samples, she added.
According to World Health Organization (WHO), monkeypox is a viral zoonosis (a virus transmitted to humans from animals) with symptoms similar to those seen in the past in smallpox patients, although it is clinically less severe.
Monkeypox does not spread easily between people. Human-to-human transmission occurs through close contact with infectious material from skin lesions of an infected person, through respiratory droplets in prolonged face-to-face contact, and through fomites.
The clinical presentation of monkeypox resembles that of smallpox, a related orthopoxvirus infection which was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. It typically presents clinically with fever, rash and swollen lymph nodes and may lead to a range of medical complications.
Symptoms of monkeypox can include fever, headache, muscle aches and backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills, exhaustion etc. A rash that can look like pimples or blisters that appears on the face, inside the mouth, and on other parts of the body, like the hands, feet, chest, genitals, or anus. The rash goes through different stages before healing completely. The illness typically lasts 2-4 weeks. Sometimes, people get a rash first, followed by other symptoms. Others only experience a rash.
Last month, the Union Health Ministry rolled out guidelines on surveillance, detection and treatment of monkeypox even though India hasn’t reported any cases, as yet.v Airport authorities have also been asked to stay alert and familiarize themselves with the monkeypox symptoms and conduct strict thermal screening, especially of those people who have a traveler history to affected countries in the last 21 days.
Monkeypox cases have so far been reported in the USA, UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Austria, Canary Islands, Israel and Switzerland.
