India has so far reported nine cases of monkeypox including one death. A 31-year-old woman tested positive for Monkeypox in the national capital on Wednesday. This is the first case of the disease among women in the country. Out of the total of nine cases, four cases are from Delhi while the remaining five have been reported from Kerala.
The Centre has called a meeting of top health experts on the need for revisiting existing guidelines on the management of monkeypox amid the rising number of cases of the disease in the country. India has so far reported nine cases of monkeypox including one death. A 31-year-old woman tested positive for Monkeypox in the national capital on Wednesday. This is the first case of the disease among women in the country. Out of the total of nine cases, four cases are from Delhi while the remaining five have been reported from Kerala.
” This is a technical meeting to revisit the existing guidelines,” an official said. The meeting is being chaired by Dr L Swasticharan, director of Emergency Medical Relief and is being attended by officials from the National Aids Control Organisation, National Centre for Disease Control and World Health Organisation (WHO) representatives.
According to existing ‘Guidelines on Management of Monkeypox Disease’ issued by the Centre, any person having a history of travel to affected countries within the last 21 days presenting with an unexplained acute rash and symptoms like swollen lymph nodes, fever, headaches, body aches and profound weakness is to be considered to be a ‘suspected case’.
A ‘probable case’ has to be a person meeting the case definition for a suspected case, clinically compatible illness and has an epidemiological link like face-to-face exposure, including health care workers without appropriate PPE, 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.
