No monkeypox reported in SA so stay calm, say experts

As cases of monkeypox continue to spread across the world, health experts in South Africa are urging the public not to panic as the virus is a lot milder than its sister virus, smallpox.

Professor Glenda Davison, head of the biomedical sciences department at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, said although it was highly infectious, it was only transmitted via close contact with body fluids and blood.

“The symptoms are similar to smallpox but a lot milder. Patients have fever, headache, enlarged glands and skin rashes,” she said. Davison also said so far there were no reported cases in SA.

She added that, with increased travel from Africa and the world, it was possible that SA could see a case.

“As it is a virus, we can’t cure it but can treat the symptoms.

“Recently, an antiviral agent called tecovirimat has been developed and licensed in Europe for monkeypox,” she said.

“There is also a vaccine, but this is not widely available.

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“Because it is related to smallpox, those who have received a smallpox vaccine would probably only get very mild disease.”

She said the World Health Organisation (WHO) was concerned as it was related to the smallpox virus, which was eradicated many years ago, and was coordinating with the UK and other European health officials after British authorities detected at least seven cases of monkeypox this month.

The WHO said there was also one “additional probable” case reported in Britain after several cases were detected in parts of Europe, North America, Australia and West Africa – and Canada had its first case.

Ibrahima Soce Fall, assistant director-general for emergency response at WHO, said: “We are seeing transmission among men having sex with men.

“[It] is new information that we need to investigate properly to understand better the dynamic of local transmission in UK and in some other countries.”

SA department of health spokesperson Foster Mohale said the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) was managing the situation.

The NICD had not responded to a request for comment by the time of going to press.

Meanwhile, Professor Tulio de Oliveira, director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform at the University of KwaZulu-Nata l, said because there were no cases of monkeypox detected in SA, a travel ban was not necessary.

“SA is at the end of the African continent and that we depend a lot on international travellers.”

De Oliveira also said monkeypox was endemic and not a very transmissible virus.

For the first time, doctors were seeing multiple countries with infections outside West and Central Africa at the moment.

De Oliveira said there have been 108 cases of monkeypox confirmed around the world and those individuals were being isolated.

He also said there was relatively good treatment available and an effective vaccine.

“They are not giving out blanket vaccinations, but they are doing what epidemiologists call ring vaccinations, where they try to get the contacts of the individuals to be vaccinated.”