7th Monkeypox case in Delhi, 5 recovered

NEW DELHI: The capital on Saturday recorded its seventh case of monkeypox after a Nigerian woman, who returned from Africa four months ago, tested positive for the disease. With this case, the total number of monkeypox cases in India reached 12.

The 24-year-old Nigerian woman, a resident of Sharda Vihar, was admitted to Delhi’s nodal hospital for the disease, Lok Nayak, on September 7 and her samples, which were sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, for testing, confirmed the disease on Friday evening. Doctors said she visited the hospital as she was suffering from fever, sore throat and body ache, along with blisters over her body.

Till now, seven cases of monkeypox have been reported in Delhi. Five patients have been successfully treated and discharged, while two are still admitted and are being treated, said nodal officer for Monkeypox, professor Vineet Relhan, dermatology department. He said the seven patients included three men and four women and all were in the age group of 20-35 years. He added that of the seven patients, six were from Africa and one hailed from west Delhi. Out of 12 patients in India — five were from Kerala — one succumbed to the infection, said officials.

Dr Relhan said as per recent published studies in the western countries, intimate contact is the common cause of transmission. Since the patients admitted in Delhi were all young, they could have transmitted the disease due to close contacts with some others. Hence their contact tracing becomes paramount to stop the spread of the disease. However, problems are arising in contact tracing of these patients as they are hesitant to disclose details about themselves, including their exact places of residence in Delhi. The doctor said that language barrier between the patients and officials is also an impediment.

A senior official in Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP) told TOI that contact tracing of the African nationals is not being done extensively. Since they are refusing to cooperate, law enforcement agencies should be involved, as they are foreigners, and a translator should be arranged to overcome the language barrier.

Efforts to contact Director General health services (DGHS) Dr Nutan Mundeja, on the status of contact tracing of the monkey pox patients, proved futile.