Suspected case of 'monkeypox' found in Kerala, samples sent for testing

Monkeypox, Monkeypox case news, Monkeypox, Monkeypox india, Monkeypox symptoms, Monkeypox outbreak, — Image Source : AP. FILE - This 2003 electron microscope image made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows mature, oval-shaped monkeypox virions, left, and spherical immature virions, right, obtained from a sample of human skin associated with the 2003 prairie dog outbreak.

Highlights

A person who returned from abroad has been admitted to a hospital in Kerala
Man showed symptoms of monkeypox, state Health Minister Veena George said on Thursday
She said his samples have been collected and sent to National Institute of Virology for testing

Monkeypox case news: A person who returned from abroad has been admitted to a hospital in Kerala after he showed symptoms of monkeypox, state Health Minister Veena George said on Thursday (July 14).

The minister said his samples have been collected and sent to the National Institute of Virology for testing.

She said the disease could be confirmed only after getting the test results.

Without revealing more details, George said the person showed symptoms of monkeypox and he was in close contact with a monkeypox patient abroad.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), monkeypox is a viral zoonosis (a virus transmitted to humans from animals) with symptoms similar to those seen in the past in smallpox patients, although it is clinically less severe.

With the eradication of smallpox in 1980 and subsequent cessation of smallpox vaccination, monkeypox has emerged as the most important orthopoxvirus for public health.

Human monkeypox was first identified in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a 9-month-old boy in a region where smallpox had been eliminated in 1968. Since then, most cases have been reported from rural, rainforest regions of the Congo Basin, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and human cases have increasingly been reported from across central and west Africa, according to WHO.

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In 2003, the first monkeypox outbreak outside of Africa was in the United States of America and was linked to contact with infected pet prairie dogs. These pets had been housed with Gambian pouched rats and dormice that had been imported into the country from Ghana.

This outbreak led to over 70 cases of monkeypox in the US Monkeypox has also been reported in travellers from Nigeria to Israel in September 2018, to the United Kingdom in September 2018, December 2019, May 2021 and May 2022, to Singapore in May 2019, and to the United States of America in July and November 2021. In May 2022, multiple cases of monkeypox were identified in several non-endemic countries.