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A man, suspected to be infected with monkeypox, has been admitted to LNJP Hospital in Delhi, sources said on Tuesday. The samples of the suspected patient, who has rashes and lesions, has been sent to National Institute of Virology, Pune.
However, the man, in his thirties, is not a contact of the first reported case of monkeypox in the national capital, they said, adding that he has a history of foreign travel. The LNJP Hospital has set up an isolation ward for monkeypox-infected and suspected patients with a 20-member team monitoring them.
One of the contacts of the monkeypox-infected resident of Delhi has complained of body ache and is being monitored to check for any other symptoms, the sources said.
The west Delhi man, who was the first reported monkeypox case in the capital, is currently recovering in the isolation ward of the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital here. His vitals are stable but his lesions will take at least a week to recover, the sources said.
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 typically presents itself with fever, headache, rashes for up to three weeks, sore throat, cough and swollen lymph nodes.
The symptoms include lesions, which usually begin within one to three days of the onset of fever, last for around two to four weeks, and are often described as painful until the healing phase when they turn itchy (in the crust stage).
In May this year, multiple cases of monkeypox were identified in several non-endemic countries. Globally, over 16,000 cases of monkeypox have now been reported from 75 countries and there have been five deaths so far due to the outbreak.