MONKEYPOX

Related Articles

SOUTH CHINA SEA

September 30, 2023

Forced labour and modern-day slavery

September 28, 2023

India and Ukraine

September 27, 2023

• Recently, the WHO (World Health Organisation) has Declared Global Health Emergency and sounded the highest alarm on the Monkeypox Virus.
• More than 16,000 cases of the virus – that was once largely confined to Africa – have been reported so far this year 2022.

Emergency for Global Health Mean

• Declaring a global emergency means the monkeypox outbreak is an “extraordinary event” that could spill over into more countries and requires a coordinated global response.
• The virus has spread to “non-endemic countries”. This virus has spread rapidly to many countries that have not seen it before.
• Three criteria for declaring a public health emergency of international concern have been met as per WHO.
• The three criteria for such a declaration are that it is an “Extraordinary Event,” that it “Constitutes a Public Health Risk” to other States through the international spread of disease and that it “potentially requires a coordinated international response.”
• The number – within a month – has grown five-fold.
• Scientific principles, evidence and other relevant information, are currently insufficient, leaving many unknowns.
• The risk to human health, international spread, and the potential for interference with international traffic.

Monkeypox

• Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease with symptoms similar to smallpox, although with less clinical severity.
• The infection was first discovered in 1958 following two outbreaks of a pox-like disease in colonies of monkeys kept for research — which led to the name ‘monkeypox’.

Symptoms:

• Infected people break out in a rash that looks a lot like chicken pox. But the fever, malaise, and headache from Monkeypox are usually more severe than in chicken pox infection.
• In the early stage of the disease, Monkeypox can be distinguished from smallpox because the lymph gland gets enlarged. 

Transmission:

• Primary infection is through direct contact with the blood, bodily fluids, or cutaneous or mucosal lesions of an infected animal. Eating inadequately cooked meat of infected animals is also a risk factor.
• Human-to-human transmission can result from close contact with infected respiratory tract secretions, skin lesions of an infected person or objects recently contaminated by patient fluids or lesion materials.
• Transmission can also occur by inoculation or via the placenta (congenital monkeypox).

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT