In the wake of monkeypox spreading fast globally, the Union health ministry issued guidelines on Tuesday asking the passengers arriving from the disease-affected countries or those in contact with a positive case in past 21 days to consult a health facility if they develop symptoms.The ministry directed district surveillance units to consider even a single case of monkeypox as an “outbreak” and initiate a detailed investigation under the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme.
“A person of any age having history of travel to affected countries within last 21 days, presenting with an unexplained acute rash and/or more of the following signs or symptoms: swollen lymph nodes; fever; headache; body aches; profound weakness… even one case of monkeypox is to be considered as an outbreak. A detailed investigation by the rapid response Teams need to be initiated through IDSP..,” the health ministry guidelines read.
The health ministry stressed on surveillance and rapid identification of new cases as the key public health measures for outbreak containment, mandating the need to reduce the risk of human-to-human transmission. It stated that India needs to be prepared in view of the increasing reports of cases in non-endemic countries even as no case of monkeypox virus has been reported in the country till date.
The guidelines proposed a surveillance strategy to rapidly identify cases and clusters of infections and the sources of infections as soon as possible in order to isolate cases to prevent further transmission, provide optimal clinical care, identify and manage contacts and protect frontline health workers and effective control and preventive measures based on the identified routes of transmission. According to the guidelines, a case is laboratory confirmed for monkeypox virus by detection of unique sequences of viral DNA either by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and/or sequencing.
{{/usCountry}}The guidelines proposed a surveillance strategy to rapidly identify cases and clusters of infections and the sources of infections as soon as possible in order to isolate cases to prevent further transmission, provide optimal clinical care, identify and manage contacts and protect frontline health workers and effective control and preventive measures based on the identified routes of transmission. According to the guidelines, a case is laboratory confirmed for monkeypox virus by detection of unique sequences of viral DNA either by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and/or sequencing.
{{/usCountry}}All the clinical specimens should be transported to the apex laboratory of ICMR-NIV (Pune) routed through the IDSP network of the respective district or state.
According to World Health Organisation, since May 13, 2022, monkeypox has been reported to it from at least 23 countries that are not endemic for the virus.