Tag : suspect

New Delhi: With several countries reporting monkeypox cases, the Union health ministry has advised all states to direct hospitals to watch out for symptomatic patients who have travelled to these countries recently and isolate them at designated healthcare facilities. According to sources, so far only one traveller from Canada having symptoms of monkeypox infection had been isolated. However, samples collected from the passenger turned out negative for the infection following test conducted at the National Institute of Virology in Pune. They refrained from divulging the name of the airport where the passenger had landed. The ministry recently had asked health officials at airports and ports to step up surveillance and isolate symptomatic travellers from monkeypox-affected countries and send their samples to the NIV for investigation. "The incubation period is usually 7-14 days but can range from 5-21 days and during that time there are mostly no symptoms. The aim is to detect those persons who were missed during the screening at the airport due to lack of symptoms at health facilities after they manifest the symptoms," an official explained. Monkeypox cases have been reported from Britain, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Canada and the US, among others. The health ministry, in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Centre for Disease Control, is framing comprehensive guidelines for the treatment and prevention of monkeypox. In the interim advisory to all states and union territories recently, the ministry said that health facilities should keep heightened suspicion on people who "present with an otherwise unexplained rash and who have travelled, in the last 21 days, to a country that has recently had c ...