Comments
In view of India reporting its first suspected case of monkey pox, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has asked state governments to step-up vigil and monitoring, while putting in place public health-care facilities to deal with increased cases of the virus.
The Union Health Secretary, Rajesh Bhushan, on Thursday, wrote to different state government officials, reiterating some of the key actions that are required to be taken by all States/UTs.
Till June 22, the WHO has recorded that 3,413 laboratory confirmed cases of Monkeypox and one death reported across 50 countries/union territories.
Majority of these cases have been reported from the European Region (86 per cent) and the Americas (11 per cent). “This points to a slow but sustained increase in spread of cases globally,” Bhushan wrote in his letter.
Proactive measures
“Continued expansion of spread of Monkeypox disease globally calls for proactive strengthening and operationalisation of requisite public health actions for preparedness; and response against the disease in India ,” the letter added.
The guidelines issued by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare call for regular re-orientation of all key stakeholders, setting up of disease surveillance teams, alerting doctors working in hospitals about common signs and symptoms, differential diagnosis, contact tracing and other surveillance activities.
The screening and testing of all suspect cases at points of entries, and in the community — either through hospital-based surveillance or targeted surveillance under measles’ surveillance — continued monitoring, and timely treatment of complications remain the key to prevent mortality. Guidelines also call for isolation of patients till lesions have resolved or fallen off.
State governments have been asked to identify hospitals and adequate human resource and logistic support “to manage suspect/confirmed cases of Monkeypox.”
Central team
As per the statement, the ministry has “rushed” a high-level multi-disciplinary team to Kerala to collaborate with the State Health authorities in instituting public health measures in view of the confirmed case of Monkey Pox. It will take a stock of on-ground situation and recommend necessary public health interventions.
The team comprise of experts drawn from National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr RML Hospital, New Delhi and senior official from Ministry; along with experts from Regional Office of Health & Family Welfare, Kerala.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.