3 Centre-run hospitals in Delhi told to reserve beds

New Delhi: The government has directed three Centre-run hospitals in the capital —Safdarjung Hospital, Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC)— to reserve a few beds for isolation and management of monkeypox cases.

The hospitals have also been asked to prepare standard operating procedures (SOPs) and train healthcare workers about the precautions they need to take while managing suspected or confirmed cases of the disease.

Till date, only Lok Nayak Hospital, which is run by the Delhi government, has designated beds for isolation and management of monkeypox cases in Delhi. The Centre’s directions come in the backdrop of a rise in the number of monkeypox cases globally. In India, a total of four cases of the disease have been confirmed— three from Kerala and one from Delhi. Some of the contacts of these confirmed cases are under observation, officials said.

Monkeypox was first identified in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But for nearly 50 years after that, few cases of the viral illness were reported from outside the African regions where it is endemic. The sudden spread of the disease to non-endemic regions including the US, UK, Europe and India among others has taken everyone by surprise. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently declared the current outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

Experts say a continued growth of this outbreak means that spread to vulnerable populations is possible, including immunocompromised individuals and children, and the implications of this are not yet understood. “Nosocomial transmission (infection acquired during the process of receiving healthcare) is an infrequent but avoidable consequence of unrecognised monkeypox infection.”