This is one of the measures that the HCMC Department of Health has taken in response to a global rise in monkeypox cases.

The Health Department has sent guidelines on prevention and control of monkeypox to medical centers across the city. The city’s health sector will ramp up efforts in an attempt to prevent the transmission of the disease from other countries and already worked out response plans.

According to the city’s Health Department, a monkeypox case will develop symptoms such as acute rash, fever, swollen lymph nodes, headache, muscle pain, back pain, and asthenia (profound weakness).

Suspected patients and healthcare workers should pay attention to the following epidemiological signs: having direct physical contact with skin or skin lesions, including sexual contact; or contact with contaminated materials such as clothing, bedding or utensils to a probable or confirmed case of monkeypox in the 21 days before symptom onset.

Besides, people with travel history to a monkeypox endemic country in the 21 days before developing symptoms are still at risk for monkeypox.

To prevent the risk of monkeypox transmission, the city’s Health Department said the border gates in the city should closely monitor body temperature of those entering the city to timely detect probable monkeypox cases.

Those with the epidemiological link will be taken to the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases for further treatment and care. They are encouraged to use private vehicles instead of public ones to go to the hospital, or they can go to their accommodations by private vehicles for self-quarantine and care.

Medical centers where monkeypox cases are residing have to monitor and collect their samples for testing. Those with a positive result will be quarantined and treated at the hospital mentioned above. The HCMC Center for Disease Control will implement contact tracing to monitor direct contacts of confirmed monkeypox cases.

Source: SGT