Sample of 5-year old collected for monkeypox testing in UP's Ghaziabad
Highlights
- 5-year-old girl from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad complained of rashes and itching.
- Her sample has been sent for monkeypox testing as a precautionary measure.
- None of her close contacts travelled abroad in the past 1 month.
Monkeypox virus: After a 5-year-old girl from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad complained of rashes and itching, her sample has been sent to be tested for monkeypox. "She has no other health issues and neither she nor any of her close contacts travelled abroad in the past 1 month," said CMO Ghaziabad. He also said that the sample has been sent as a precautionary measure.
The development comes four days after the Central government issued guidelines amid increasing cases of monkeypox in non-endemic countries. The government directed district surveillance units to consider even one such case as an outbreak and initiate a detailed investigation through the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme.
In the 'Guidelines on Management of Monkeypox Disease' issued to states and union territories, 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.
(With PTI Inputs)
