VIJAYAWADA: The blood samples of the child, who was suspected to have contracted monkeypox in Andhra Pradesh's Vijayawada, have tested negative, said Superintendent GGH Hospital Nageshwara Rao.
The samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology in Pune after the child was admitted to the hospital with Monkeypox symptoms at GGH hospital. His family was kept under home quarantine.
They had travelled to India yesterday from Saudi Arabia.
A team of the Union Health Ministry was rushed to Kerala after a confirmed case of monkeypox in the Kollam district was reported.
The patient with monkeypox had arrived in Kerala from the UAE and tested positive for the viral disease on Thursday. He is currently in isolation undergoing treatment at the Government Medical College hospital in Thiruvananthapuram.
The central government on Thursday wrote a letter to all the states and union territories, reiterating some of the key actions that are required to contain the spread of the disease.
Health secretary Rajesh Bhushan cited the letter sent by the ministry on May 31 in which it had issued a comprehensive 'Guidelines for Management of Monkeypox Disease'.
The health secretary asked all the states and union territories to take key actions like orientation and regular re-orientation of all key stakeholders including health screening teams at points of entry (PoEs), disease surveillance teams, doctors working in hospitals about common signs and symptoms, differential diagnosis, case definitions for s for suspect/probable/confirmed cases and contacts, contact tracing and other surveillance activities that need to be undertaken following the detection of a case, testing, IPC protocols, clinical management, etc.
According to World Health Organization (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.
Monkeypox is transmitted to humans through close contact with an infected person or animal, or with material contaminated with the virus. It is usually a self-limited disease with symptoms lasting from two to four weeks, WHO said.
Monkeypox virus is transmitted from one person to another by close contact with lesions, body fluids, respiratory droplets and contaminated materials such as bedding.
As reported by WHO, since January 1, 2022, and as of June 22, 2022, a total of 3,413 laboratory-confirmed cases of Monkeypox and one death have been reported to WHO from 50 countries/territories.
The majority of these cases have been reported from the European Region (86 per cent) and the Americas (11 per cent). This points to a slow but sustained increase in the spread of cases globally. Considering this is the first time that cases and clusters are being reported concurrently in five WHO Regions, WHO has assessed the overall risk of spread of cases as "Moderate" at the global level.