Monkeypox In India: Centre Holds Meeting With Top Health Experts Amid Rising Cases

India has so far reported 9 confirmed cases and one death. The meeting is to revisit the current guidelines for the management of Monkeypox.

The Centre Thursday called for a meeting with top health experts to discuss the existing guidelines on the management of the disease amid rising number of Monkeypox cases in India, PTI reported. Nine cases of the viral infection, including one death has been confirmed in the country so far. A 31-year-old Nigerian woman in Delhi on Wednesday was found infected with monkeypox. She is the first woman in the country to test positive for monkeypox infection. On July 30, a 22-year-old Kerala man lost his life. He had recently returned from the UAE.

The meeting was chaired by Dr L Swasticharan, director of Emergency Medical Relief. Other attendees included, officials from the National Aids Control Organisation, National Centre for Disease Control and World Health Organisation (WHO) representatives.

The current ‘Guidelines on Management of Monkeypox Disease’ which was issued by the Centre, described a ‘suspected case’ as someone who has a history of travel in any of the affected countries in the past 21 days and shows symptoms such as an unexplained acute rash, swollen lymph nodes, fever, headache, body ache and profound weakness. 

A ‘probable case’ would be someone who has had prolonged face-to-face exposure to a ‘suspected’ case, this includes healthcare workers without appropriate PPE kits, or people with direct physical contact with skin or skin lesions, including sexual contact, or contact with contaminated material such as clothing, bedding or utensils.

A case is considered laboratory confirmed for monkeypox virus by detection of unique sequences of viral DNA either by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and/or sequencing.

Defining contacts, the guidelines stated that a contact is defined as a person who, in the period beginning with the onset of the source case's first symptoms, and ending when all scabs have fallen off, has had one or more of the exposures-- face-to-face exposure, direct physical contact, including sexual contact, contact with contaminated materials such as clothing or bedding --- with a probable or confirmed case of monkeypox.

Cases can be prompted to identify contacts across the household, workplace, school/nursery, sexual contacts, healthcare, houses of worship, transportation, sports, social gatherings, and any other recalled interactions.

Contacts should be monitored at least daily for the onset of signs/symptoms for a period of 21 days from the last contact with a patient or their contaminated material during the infection period. In case of occurrence of fever clinical/lab evaluation is warranted.

Asymptomatic contacts should not donate blood, cells, tissue, organs or semen while they are under surveillance. Pre-school children may be excluded from daycare, nursery, or other group settings.

The World Health Organisation recently declared monkeypox a global public health emergency of international concern. It is a zoonotic disease – a virus transmitted to humans from animals, it is similar to smallpox although it is considered to be less severe. 

The health organisation states that Monkeypox typically manifests itself with fever, rash and swollen lymph nodes which may lead further to a range of medical complications. It is usually a self-limited disease with symptoms lasting for two to four weeks.

International passengers have been asked to avoid contact with dead or live wild animals such as small mammals including rodents like rats and squirrels and primates like apes and monkeys.

(With PTI Inputs)