UP's Ghaziabad district reports first suspected monkeypox case
Premium- Monkeypox in India: A five-year-old girl in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad is being tested for monkeypox after she complained of itching and rashes on her body
Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad district has reported first suspected monkeypox case on Saturday. “The sample of a suspected monkeypox case in Ghaziabad has been sent for testing, but it's unnecessary panic mongering," ANI news agency wrote, quoting government sources. No monkeypox case has been reported in India so far.
A five-year-old girl in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad is being tested for monkeypox after she complained of itching and rashes on her body.
The Chief Medical Officer of Ghaziabad said that the test is just a "precautionary measure" as the girl has no other health issues, nor does she have close contact with anyone who has travelled abroad in the past month.
"Samples of a five-year-old girl have been collected for testing for monkeypox, as a precautionary measure, as she had complaints of itching and rashes on her body. She has no other health issues and neither she nor any of her close contacts travelled abroad in the past one month," CMO Ghaziabad said.
Recently, the Central government issued guidelines on monkeypox cases. The government directed district surveillance units to consider even one such case as an outbreak and initiated a detailed investigation through the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme.
The Union Health Ministry stressed augmenting surveillance and rapid identification of new cases as the key public health measures to contain any outbreak.
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.
Monkeypox has been reported as endemic in several other central and western African countries. However, cases have been also reported in certain non-endemic countries like the US, the UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Australia, Canada, Austria, Israel and Switzerland.
The health ministry said it continues to maintain a close watch over the evolving situation.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 30 non-endemic countries have reported more than 550 confirmed cases of monkeypox so far.