Centre Holds High-Level Meeting Amid Rising Monkeypox Cases

Top heath officials of the Centre on Thursday held deliberations on the need for revisiting existing guidelines on management of monkeypox amid rising number of cases of the virus in the country.

India has so far reported nine cases of monkeypox including one death.

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'.

The ministry guidelines stated that the 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.

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

The WHO had recently declared monkeypox a global public health emergency of international concern.

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