Leaders of the Department of Preventive Health visits and encourages the first monkeypox patient in Vietnam. (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA)- According to information from the Ministry of Health, the first case of monkeypox in Vietnam initially tested negative.
Handling safety monitoring stages
The female patient, 35, resides in Ho Chi Minh City. She fell ill on September 18 while traveling in Dubai with symptoms of fever, fatigue, chills, muscle aches, headache and cough, as well as red, itchy bumps on her arms, body, and face. She returned to Vietnam on September 22.
On September 23, she was admitted to the city’s Tu Du Hospital and then transferred to the municipal Hospital of Dermato Venereology, where she was isolated.
Two days later, she tested positive for monkeypox and was transferred to the municipal Hospital for Tropical Diseases for further isolation, treatment and genetic sequencing.
Currently, she is in stable health with no fever.
The ministry has sent an urgent dispatch on prevention measures against monkeypox to authorities in centrally-run cities and provinces given the growing number of infections across the globe. As of September 26, there were 64,561 monkeypox cases logged across 105 countries worldwide.
Under the Prime Minister’s recent dispatch and the ministry’s guidance, localities have been requested to intensify monitoring of possible transmissions at border gates and health clinics. They are also to hold training sessions for health staff, and ensure infection prevention and control at testing and medical facilities.
In addition, they have been instructed to update their response plans, hold drills, and prepare resources.
Increasing activities to raise public awareness of preventive measures has also been recommended.
When a positive case of monkeypox is detected, the locality involved is required to conduct contact tracing and quarantine to prevent the epidemic from spreading in the community.
In parallel with decoding the virus genome, doctors and medical staff of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City have treated and cared for patients safely and effectively. They have coordinated with the Central for Disease Control and Prevention to carry out epidemiological investigation, localization, isolation, monitoring of relatives and medical staff who had close contact.
Flexible epidemic prevention scenarios
The World Health Organization (WHO) on October 12 announced that the number of cases in the global monkeypox outbreak has now surpassed 70,000, including 26 deaths.
Since the beginning of 2022, WHO has received reports of monkeypox outbreaks in 106 member countries in all 6 continents. The WHO has also warned that the decreasing trend in the number of new cases does not mean that people can be subjective.
The United States has the highest number of monkeypox cases in the world with more than 26,000 cases as of October 3.
According to Professor Phan Trong Lan, the introduction of monkeypox into Vietnam is inevitable because in the current travel context, the disease can move from one country to another.
Although the monkeypox virus can be transmitted from animals to humans, health experts stress the recent global spread is due to close contact with sick people.
Typical symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache, muscle aches, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, rash or skin lesions.
Monkeypox causes a smallpox-like rash and scarring, mainly on the face, anus, and genitals.
People with the disease can spread it to others when symptoms are present, and the virus is spread through bodily fluids (pus or blood from skin lesions) and objects used by an infected person.
Most of the cases recovered after 10-14 days with normal immunity and stopped spreading after 21 days. However, for the safety of the community, people need to take the monkeypox prevention measures recommended by the health sector./.
