India has reported four cases of monkeypox in just 11 days. After reporting its first case from Kerala on 14 July, the fourth infection was recorded on Sunday after a 34-year-old-man from Delhi with no travel history tested positive. How is the virus spreading and can it become a COVID-like scare?
There’s just no respite. Even as the world continues its battle against COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) on 23 July sounded off its alarm on monkeypox, declaring it a “public health emergency of international concern“.
India has already reported four cases of monkeypox so far. The fourth case was detected on Sunday in a 34-year-old man from Delhi with no international travel history, making him the first known case of local transmission.
The country had reported its first monkeypox case on 14 July from Kerala when a 35-year-old person who returned from UAE showed symptoms.
Following the discovery of the infection, the Centre asked port and airport officials to ensure strict health screening of all international travellers.
“They were advised to ensure strict health screening of all arriving international travellers which can minimise the risk of importation of monkeypox cases into the country. They were advised and re-oriented in clinical presentation of monkeypox disease as per ministry of health’s ‘Guidelines for Management of Monkeypox Disease’,” the Centre said.
They were also advised to coordinate with other stakeholder agencies like immigration at international ports and airports to streamline the health screening processes.
Is India at a risk of a monkeypox outbreak? Should we be concerned? How exactly does monkeypox spread? We try to answer all these questions and more.
How does monkeypox spread?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), America’s health protection agency, states that the disease that causes pimple- or blister-like lesions and flu-like symptoms spreads through close contact.
That includes direct physical contact with lesions as well as “respiratory secretions” shared through face-to-face interaction, and touching objects that have been contaminated by monkeypox lesions or fluids. The virus may also pass to a foetus through the placenta.
It is also possible for people to get monkeypox from infected animals, either by being scratched or bitten by the animal or by preparing or eating meat or using products from an infected animal.
Dr John Brooks, the CDC’s chief medical officer of HIV prevention, told CNN that monkeypox is not a sexually transmitted infection in the typical sense, but it can be transmitted during sexual and intimate contact, as well as with personal contact and shared bedding and clothing.
The US health agency also added that it’s not clear whether monkeypox can spread through semen or vaginal fluids, but the virus can’t spread asymptomatically — which means that people who do not have monkeypox symptoms cannot spread the virus to others.
According to the first major peer-reviewed paper to analyse a large set of cases of the virus, the global outbreak is primarily being driven by sex between men.
Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University, of the new study, which was published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, said: “Infections are so far almost exclusively occurring among men who have sex with men. The clinical presentation of these infections suggest that sexual transmission, not just close physical contact, may be helping spread the virus among this population.”
Spread across the world
As of 23 July, there were 15,600 confirmed cases of the viral disease across the world, with 65 countries reporting infections.
In Europe, France and Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom have recorded the most cases — 1,453, 2,191, 3,125 and 2,137 respectively.
European Union health commissioner, Stella Kyriakides, reacting to the spread of the disease in the area was quoted as telling Reuters, “I am concerned by the increasing number of monkeypox cases in the EU.”
As of 21 July, the United States of America had recorded 2,593 cases.
Should India be concerned?
As alarm bells go off worldwide, medical experts have called for calm, saying that monkeypox is a largely self-limiting disease — which means it will resolve itself on its own, and will leave no long-term harmful effects on a patient’s health.
As Delhi recorded its first case on Sunday, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted that patient was stable and recovering.
“There’s no need to panic. The situation is under control. We have made a separate isolation ward at LNJP [Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital]. Our best team is on the case to prevent the spread and protect Delhiites,” Kejriwal said.
Virologist Dr Shahid Jameel, who is associated with the University of Oxford and Ashoka University, underlined that as human-to-human transmission of monkeypox requires close contact, it should be fairly easy to limit its spread.
Epidemiologist Dr Naman Shah, too, in a Moneycontrol report said that as the disease is easy to track and trace overall, it should not pose a big challenge as long as contacts can be identified.
A doctor at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital, where the Delhi patient is being treated, has advised people that wearing masks and practising social distancing like for COVID-19 is a good measure to prevent the virus.
He further explained that people who have travel history are more vulnerable.
“Those who have co-morbidity are more vulnerable. It is a self-limiting disease with a rate of cure of 99 per cent. Morbidity is just one per cent,” he said.
How to protect yourself?
The CDC has advised people to exercise caution in situations where one can’t maintain some sense of personal space and bumping into others is impractical. In places where clothing is minimal and you could experience that contact, such as crowded raves and clubs, the risk goes up.
Secondly, people have been advised to clean and disinfect environments that could have been contaminated with the virus from someone who is infectious regularly.
Also, if you think you might have monkeypox, you can act to protect others by seeking medical advice and isolating yourself from others until they have been evaluated and tested.
With inputs from agencies
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