Jamaica has confirmed its first case of monkeypox.
That’s according to Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton who was speaking at a press conference.
The patient is a male from Clarendon who travelled from the United Kingdom.
Tufton said the man presented to a health facility on July 5, having arrived in the island five days earlier.
The patient has been isolated and his close contacts quarantined following contact tracing.
Tufton disclosed that the case has triggered the ministry’s emergency protocols in line with international health regulations.
Among other things, the emergency operations centre has been activated and a review of all isolation centres is to be done to look at the capacity to manage both monkeypox and COVID-19 cases.
Additionally, he said the necessary health protocols, including surveillance, clinical management, lab management as well as infection prevention and control are being completed for the distribution to health teams islandwide.
The sensitisation of health teams and the public will also continue.
However, Tufton said it was “business as usual in terms of the functioning of the economy”.
Noting that the disclosure was “out of a duty to inform the public but not to raise any undue alarm”, the health minister reminded citizens to take personal responsibility to protect themselves and to be “observant sufficiently to understand if you think you are threatened either by a third person, or you feel threatened personally based on symptoms that you have”.
So far this year, the World Health Organization has reported cases of monkeypox in 58 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Germany, France, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain.
Monkeypox is spread when a person comes into contact with an infected animal or rodents, while person-to-person spread is generally uncommon but can occur through direct contact with monkeypox skin legions, contact with clothing or linen used by infected persons, coughing or sneezing of an individual with a monkeypox rash.
The incubation period is between five to 21 days.
