No reason to panic, says Health Ministry as first case of monkeypox detected in SL

Do not panic, is the message that experts are stressing, as the Health Ministry announced that the first case of monkeypox has been detected in Sri Lanka.

The first person detected with monkeypox is a 19-year-old who had returned from abroad on November 1. The Medical Research Institute (MRI) which had been sent a sample for testing by doctors who suspected that the patient was affected by monkeypox confirmed the infection on Thursday.

“Monkeypox usually passes from person-to-person through ‘close contact’,” said Consultant Virologist Dr. Geethani Galagoda who is the President of the Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Forum of Sri Lanka.

Explaining that the disease is usually not dangerous, Dr. Galagoda says that the very young and very old and those with reduced immunity (who are immune-compromised such as diabetics) could be more vulnerable.

The monkeypox infection progresses in a person and he/she begins to break out in a rash, contact with the vesicles would give the illness to others

It is a self-limiting viral disease. The infection lasts a certain period of time – a few weeks. The incubation period (the time between the virus entering a person’s body and causing symptoms) is about 3 to 17 days and the disease lasts for about 2-4 weeks, it is learnt.

Dr. Galagoda said that in the early stages of the infection, a patient may spread the disease through large respiratory droplets from the nose and mouth, exhaled by sneezing or coughing, to a person who is close by. The other way it spreads is through contact with the skin lesions of the infected person.

“This viral disease may also be sexually transmitted, may be as a result of close contact,” she said.

The symptoms of monkeypox can include:

„ Fever

„ Chills

„ Swollen lymph nodes

„ Skin lesions (a part of the skin that has an abnormal appearance compared to the skin around it)

„ Exhaustion

„ Muscle aches and backache

„ Headache

„ Respiratory symptoms such as a sore throat, nasal congestion or cough

Explaining that the disease is usually not dangerous, Dr. Galagoda says that the very young and very old and those with reduced immunity (who are immune-compromised such as diabetics) could be more vulnerable.

Consultant in Sexual Health and HIV, Dr. Geethani Samaraweera of the National STD/AIDS Campaign also stressed that monkeypox is spread by “very close contact”.

She said that as the monkeypox infection progresses in a person and he/she begins to break out in a rash, contact with the vesicles would give the illness to others.

Vesicles or blisters are thinwalled sacs filled with a fluid, usually clear like one gets when affected by chickenpox.

“These skin lesions which can occur all over the body as well as around genitalia are contagious until totally healed. Even the scabs which get formed over the blisters remain infectious,” said Dr. Samaraweera.

She said that close contact with skin blisters and stuff such as clothes, bedding and towels which may have got contaminated by an infected person, should be avoided. If someone suspects that he/she has monkeypox, that person should seek a doctor’s advice or go to a skin clinic or STD/AIDS clinic at a state hospital.

Dispelling the misconception that only people who have sexually-transmitted diseases access the STD/AIDS clinics of state hospitals, Dr. Samaraweera added that while these clinics treat people with venereolgical diseases spread through sexual activity, any person who has any issue with genitalia can walk in for advice and treatment.

In August, the Sunday Times reported that the Virology Department of the Medical Research Institute (MRI) had received RT-PCR kits for the detection of monkeypox.

The two types of RT-PCR (realtime Polymerase Chain Reaction) kits that the MRI received had been developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology in Pune, India. The World Health Organization (WHO) on July 23, this year, declared monkeypox a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

Even though the world has known the monkeypox virus for over 50 years with infections being detected mainly in Central and West Africa and a very few other countries, this year (2022), many cases have been and are being detected in a large number of countries.