E-Paper
China’s monkeypox advisory warns its citizens not to touch foreigners
China issued the advisory after first monkeypox case was detected on Friday in the southwestern city of Chongqing in an individual who arrived from abroad
BEIJING The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned citizens not to touch foreigners after the first monkeypox case was detected on Friday in the southwestern city of Chongqing in China.
The infection was detected on Friday in an individual who arrived from abroad, China’s first known monkeypox infection amid the recent global outbreak of the virus.
Local authorities said the transmission risk was low as the individual was put in quarantine upon arrival in Chongqing as per Covid-19 protocol, and all close contacts were isolated and put under medical observation.
No other details about the individual were released.
Following the first case, the CDC, which is affiliated to the national health commission (NHC), China’s health ministry, published five recommendations for the public to follow to prevent the spread of the disease.
Wu Zunyou, CDC’s chief epidemiologist, published the recommendations on China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo on Saturday, advising the public on the dos and don’ts.
Wu wrote that China’s Covid-19 restrictions on international travel and tight border checks had prevented the spread of monkeypox until the first case “slipped through the net”.
The first advice Wu gave was “Do not have skin-to-skin contact with foreigners”.
Wu went on to advise the public also not to have “contact” with people who have recently returned from abroad for at least three weeks besides asking them to maintain personal hygiene.
Wu’s post was shared widely on Weibo with some praising his suggestions and others calling it discriminatory.
It was also shared among expat groups on social media platforms like WeChat.
While overt racism against foreigners in China is rare, in April, 2020, the Chinese foreign ministry had to issue a statement, saying “China has zero tolerance for racial discrimination” after African nationals in the southern province of Guangdong complained of racism in the way they were treated when authorities were implementing Covid-19 control measures.
“It is regrettable that, during the implementation of prevention and control measures, concerns of discriminatory treatment were expressed by some African nationals staying in Guangdong province. The Guangdong authorities attached great importance to the concerns and have worked promptly to improve their working method,” the statement said.
China’s policy of categorising Covid-19 cases among international travellers as “imported cases” has been under scrutiny as well given that it could be construed that foreigners are responsible for spreading the infection in mainland China.
In reality, the vast majority of “imported” Covid-19 infections detected among international arrivals have been found in Chinese citizens returning home from other countries.
China has said it is equipped to deal with a monkeypox outbreak in the country.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the spread of the disease as a global health emergency with around 90 countries where monkeypox is not endemic reporting outbreaks.
Over 60,000 confirmed cases have been reported so far globally and first deaths from non-endemic countries have also been reported.
