A 31-year-old man from Kerala has tested positive for monkeypox on Monday, making it the second confirmed case of the disease in India, a government official said.
The man, who is from Kannur district in the state, landed at the Mangalore airport in coastal Karnataka from Dubai on July 13. District surveillance officer Dr Jagadish said no cases of monkeypox have been reported in Dakshina Kannada so far. Screening is being done at the airport as a precaution.
The pateint’s samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune and they tested positive for monkeypox, the officials said.
He is being treated at Pariyaram Medical College in Kannur and is stable, the state heath department has confirmed.
Last week, a man who had returned to Kerala from the UAE had tested positive for monkeypox.
At the time the Centre had rushed a team of experts from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to assist the state.
The World Health Organization or WHO said Thursday it would reconvene its expert monkeypox committee on July 21 to decide whether the outbreak constitutes a global health emergency.
A surge in monkeypox infections has been reported since early May outside the West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic.
Most monkeypox infections so far have been observed in men who have sex with men, of young age and chiefly in urban areas, according to the WHO.
According to available statistics, almost all patients affected thus far are male, with a median age of 37, with three-fifths identifying as men who have sex with men, the WHO said.
The normal initial symptoms of monkeypox include a high fever, swollen lymph nodes and a blistery chickenpox-like rash.
It was first found in monkeys in 1958, hence the name. Rodents are now seen as the main source of transmission. It spreads through close contact, both from animals and, less commonly, between humans.
