Two toddlers in Yamunanagar hospital with rashes test negative for monkeypox

YAMUNANAGAR: Two minor siblings in Yamunanagar, who were being treated as suspected patients of monkeypox, have tested negative for the infection, a doctor said on Sunday. A two-and-a-half-year-old boy and his one-and-a-half-year-old sister were admitted to the Yamunanagar civil hospital where they were kept in an isolation ward set up for monkeypox patients.
"Their reports have come, both are negative," Yamunanagar civil surgeon Dr Manjeet Singh told a news agency over phone.
He said the siblings had blisters and rashes on their bodies. "They have active skin lesions and some have dried up. There are rashes. Both had fever too. We started their treatment and sent their test samples to AIIMS, Delhi. Both have tested negative," he said, adding the reports came in on Sunday.
When asked what other disease they could be suffering from, the doctor said, "It looks like a bacterial infection. But as the blisters were extensive we were treating them as suspected (monkeypox) cases."
The children, whose parents are labourers, had been ill for the past 12 days and were receiving treatment privately initially.
Singh said that they received information about the children with monkeypox-like symptoms and brought them to the hospital in an ambulance for treatment.
"We have called skin specialists too for further treatment," the doctor said.
Yamunanagar health department has kept a five-bed isolation ward for treating monkeypox related patients, he said. Some schools in the district are said to have started sending messages to parents of students advising them to take precautionary measures.