Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Mpox a public health emergency of international concern, India has not reported any cases since March 2024, and the risk to the country has been assessed as low, according to sources.
However, WHO has observed that clade 1a and clade 2 are spreading more rapidly in several African nations.
“While India has not reported any case since March 2024 and the NCDC has assessed the risk to India as low, national and state governments have implemented all precautionary public health measures to ensure timely detection of any travel-related cases, their testing, isolation and appropriate management,” the sources added.
Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, has been a public health problem in parts of Africa for many years, but re-emerged as a global concern in 2022.
Since 1 January 2022, Mpox cases have been reported to WHO from 121 Member States in all six WHO regions.
The WHO Mpox report of 3 September 2024 provides global data up to 31 July 2024. A total of 102,997 laboratory-confirmed cases and 186 probable cases, including 223 deaths, have been reported to WHO.
“There has been an increase in the number of cases and deaths due to Mpox (clade Ib) in the African region. This led WHO to once again declare Mpox a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) on 14 August 2024,” the report explains.
Recent cases of clade Ib have also been detected in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Sweden, Thailand and Uganda. The African region has been the most affected, with 3,061 cases and 23 deaths reported. This is followed by the Americas region (2,236 cases, 0 deaths) and the European region (837 cases, 2 deaths).
As of July 2024, 1,425 cases and six deaths were reported worldwide. More than half of these cases occurred in the African region (55%), followed by the Americas region (24%) and the European region (11%). The South-East Asia Region (SEAR) reported 1% of the total cases.
Dr Megha Brijwal, Additional Professor, Department of Microbiology, AIIMS Delhi, told ANI, “One suspected case was reported but the test came back negative. Delhi has not reported any case so far. The patient had a travel history and some contact with people who had travelled recently. As a precaution, the patient was placed in isolation and a sample was sent for testing, which came back negative. The patient was briefly admitted to isolation, though at that time, the criteria for isolation and the unit were not set. However, the Delhi government has now designated three hospitals — Safdarjung Hospital, RML and Lady Hardinge Hospital — as referral centres where suspected cases will be isolated.”
“Earlier, we reported two cases, neither of which was of this strain, including a total of 15 cases from Delhi and 15 from other states till March,” he added.
Mpox transmission occurs through close and prolonged contact with an infected patient, mainly through sexual contact, direct contact with the patient’s bodily fluid or injury, or contaminated clothing or bedding of the infected person.
(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First published: September 4, 2024 | 21:38 IS
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