TAC to discuss monkeypox response today

Maqsood Maniyar | NT
Bengaluru

Karnataka’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) will be holding a review meeting on the handling of monkeypox on Saturday. The information was disclosed by the Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare Services (HFWS) department D Randeep, who added that guidelines would be issued on the ailment on Sunday.

The development comes in the backdrop of the first case of the viral disease in the country being confirmed on Thursday. The infection came to light as Kerala Health Minister Veena George announced that a 35-year-old Kollam native had tested positive for the illness.

The patient was then isolated at Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College Hospital. Randeep said: “There is no panic to issue it quickly before understanding what it is.” “What TAC chairperson (Dr Sudarshan) has said is that it is a fairly known, evolving kind of situation, so rather than issue what we issued last time, let us study it for one day,” he added.

Randeep said that HFWS department had issued guidelines on monkeypox in June. He clarified that TAC dealt with all communicable diseases and not just Covid. Noted virologist and professor at the Department of Community Health at Christian Medical College, Vellore, Dr Jacob John, said that he favoured screening, but under a holistic, nationwide monkeypox protocol, adding that all entry points in the country had to be screened for the policy to be effective.

“I would strongly recommend airport screening,” he said. “This is the way it should be done. Somebody goes to the hospital. They recognise it and they isolate it. Say that this is a suspected case of monkeypox so that others don’t get infected. That is the sensible way of handling this, rather than overreacting,” he added.

John said although the smallpox vaccine could prove effective against monkeypox as both viruses belonged to the same family, those vaccines were very expensive right now in India.

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Know the disease

Monkeypox is a viral disease. The virus that causes it comes under the Orthopoxvirus genus, which also includes the variola virus, which causes smallpox. Monkeypox was discovered in 1958 in colonies of monkeys kept for research. The first human transmission of it was recorded in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since then, cases have been recorded in central and west African nations, apart from Europe and North America. Nearly 3,500 cases of the disease had been detected in 58 countries as of late June, 2022.