According to Phaahla the patient is a 30-year-old male from Johannesburg, Gauteng, who has no travel history, meaning that this cannot be attributed to having been acquired outside South Africa.
“Late yesterday, I received a report from the National Health Laboratory Services CEO that they have confirmed through laboratory tests the first case of Monkeypox in South Africa. The patient is working with the relevant health authorities and a process of contact tracing has begun,” Phaahla said.
The Minister said the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) is conducting online in service training for health workers for them to be able to detect the disease so that the necessary laboratory tests can be done.
“The disease only spreads through close contact, so you cannot get it by being in the same room with an infected person. Thus far it has been dominant in men who have sex with men, but the main feature is that transmission is through close contact,” the Minister said.
Minister Phaahla assured South Africans that Monkeypox is not a novel virus which has never been seen before and its characteristics are well known.
