Monkeypox virus, disease outbreak: Centre holds meet with top health experts as cases rise to 9

Monkeypox virus, disease outbreak: The Centre has convened a meeting of top health experts to discuss the guidelines on the management of Monkeypox disease. India has so far reported 9 cases of Monkeypox including one death.

"It was a technical meeting to revisit the existing guidelines," an official said.

The meeting was chaired by Dr L Swasticharan, director of Emergency Medical Relief and 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.
 
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.

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 ministry guidelines state that human-to-human transmission occurs primarily through large respiratory droplets generally requiring prolonged close contact.

 
It can also be transmitted through direct contact with body fluids or lesions, and indirect contact with lesion material such as through contaminated clothing or linen of an infected person. Animal-to-human transmission may occur by bite or scratch of infected animals or through bushmeat preparation.

 
The incubation period is usually from six to 13 days and the case fatality rate of monkeypox has historically ranged up to 11 percent in the general population and higher among children. In recent times, the case fatality rate has been around three to six percent.

The symptoms include lesions that usually begin within one to three days from the onset of fever, lasting for around two to four weeks, and are often described as painful until the healing phase when they become itchy.