After the confirmation of India’s first monkeypox case in Kerala, a top professor from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has now asked people not to panic as the infectivity of the virus is “very less”, news agency ANI reported.
Professor of AIIMS’s department of medicine Piyush Ranjan, however, warned that the zoonotic disease can be “fatal for children as compared to the Covid-19 virus”.
AIIMS, Dept of Medicine, Additional Professor Piyush Ranjan said monkeypox virus transmits from animals to human beings by close contact or through face-to-face contact with infected people for a longer duration. He further said that monkeypox symptoms are like Smallpox and Chickenpox.
Speaking to ANI, Dr Piyush Ranjan, Department of Medicine, AIIMS said, “The infectivity of monkeypox is less but it can be fatal in children. The COVID-19 infection has more transmissibility, but monkeypox infection occurs after prolonged exposure with an infected person. So the infection rate is very high in COVID and an infected person can infect many. But, monkeypox is less contagious.”
Also Read: Coronavirus Update: India reports 20,038 new cases
Explaining the symptoms, Dr Ranjan said, “Monkeypox symptoms are like smallpox and chickenpox. At the onset, patients will have fever and enlargement of lymph nodes. After 1-5 days the patient may report rashes on the face, palms or soles. They may have rashes in the cornea leading to blindness.”
Notably, the first case of monkeypox in the WHO South-East Asia Region has been reported from India, in a 35-year-old man who arrived from the Middle East earlier this week.
Over 6,000 cases of monkeypox and three deaths have been reported from across 60 countries since the beginning of the year. More cases can be expected as surveillance expands, a WHO press release read.
In the region, the risk is assessed as moderate. On 23 June, WHO convened a meeting of the Emergency Committee to seek expert advice if the ongoing outbreak was a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said monkeypox is a viral zoonosis (a virus transmitted to humans from animals) with symptoms similar to that seen earlier in smallpox patients. The United Nations (UN) agency, however, said it is clinically less severe.
Experts have said that monkeypox virus mutates at a higher rate but is treatable after observing symptoms.
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