Monkeypox: Health dept. to focus on creating public awareness

The Health department will focus on creating more awareness of monkeypox, its symptoms and modes of transmission among the public, dermatologists and groups exhibiting high-risk behaviour so that even in the absence of classical symptoms, a high level of suspicion of the disease will be maintained by everyone. The study suggested that amplification of transmission seemed to be through sexual networks and that a diagnosis of monkeypox should be considered in at-risk persons presenting with traditional sexually transmitted infections symptoms. That said, sustained transmission continues to be within groups with high-risk behaviour and hence we have put our sexually transmitted diseases clinics on the alert,” a Health official said. Public health experts have already been training counsellors, peer educators and outreach workers working in the targetted intervention programmes so that they can communicate properly about the disease to the high-risk groups.