Thiruvananthapuram: A suspected case of monkeypox, India’s first, has been reported from Kerala, the state health minister said on Thursday.
A traveler who arrived in Kerala three days ago from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was hospitalized after showing symptoms of monkeypox.
Samples from the traveler have been sent for testing to the National Institute of Virology in Pune, Health Minister Veena George said today, adding that the case can only be confirmed after receiving the test results.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), monkeypox is a viral zoonosis (a virus transmitted to humans from animals) with symptoms similar to those seen in patients with smallpox in the past, although it is clinically milder.
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-limiting illness with symptoms lasting two to four weeks, the WHO said.
Monkeypox virus is transmitted from one person to another through close contact with lesions, body fluids, respiratory droplets, and contaminated materials such as bedding.
The clinical presentation of monkeypox resembles that of smallpox, an orthopoxvirus infection that was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. It usually presents clinically with fever, rash, and swollen lymph nodes, and can lead to a number of medical complications.
Human monkeypox was first identified in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a 9-month-old boy in a region where smallpox had been eliminated in 1968. Since then, most cases have been reported from rural rainforest areas of the Basin Congo, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and human cases are increasingly being reported from Central and West Africa, according to the WHO.
In 2003, the first outbreak of monkeypox outside of Africa was in the United States of America and was linked to contact with infected domestic prairie dogs. These pets were housed with Gambian possums and sleepies imported into the country from Ghana.
This outbreak resulted in over 70 cases of monkeypox in the United States. Monkeypox was also reported in travelers from Nigeria to Israel in September 2018, to the United Kingdom in September 2018, December 2019, May 2021 and May 2022, to Singapore in May 2019 and in United States in July and November 2021. In May 2022, multiple cases of monkeypox were identified in several non-endemic countries.
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