TANTRUM – A lot Health World WHO has declared an outbreak monkey pox as a global health emergency. With this status, monkeypox should be of international concern, including Indonesia.
Professor of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine UGM, Wayan Tunas Artama, stated that many parties needed to increase education and vigilance. Through these methods, he assessed as the main strategy to reduce the risk factors of the community against the possibility of being exposed to the virus.
For monkeypox preventionsimilar to health protocol or prokes Covid-19. According to Wayan, as an effort to protect oneself, it is necessary to avoid direct contact with symptomatic people, apply safe sexual relations, maintain hand hygiene using water and soap or hand sanitizer, use masks, and practice proper coughing and sneezing etiquette.
Meanwhile, prevention efforts at home can be done by carrying out good hygiene practices, washing cloth with detergent, separating infected people’s eating utensils, washing cutlery using hot water or warm water and soap using gloves, cleaning contaminated surfaces with disinfectants.
Restrictions on Trade and Transport of Animals
In a country that has experienced an outbreak of monkeypox, Wayan said that one way to prevent it is to limit the trade and transportation of animals.
“In view of the epidemic Monkeypox In the United States in 2003, there was a policy of restricting trade and transportation of animals,” he said, quoted from the UGM website, Saturday (30/7).
Reflecting on the outbreak in the US, according to Wayan, everything needs to be considered and tightened, especially in endemic areas and countries with the outbreak. Animals that may have been in contact with infected animals should be quarantined and handled according to prevention standards and observed for symptoms of Monkeypox for 30 days.
“Because Monkeypox or Monkeypox is a zoonotic disease and it was endemic in England in early May,” he said.
Speaking of transmission can be from animals to humans and occurs when capturing, processing, and consuming wild animal meat. It can also be through direct contact with blood, body fluids, or lesions from infected animals such as small mammals, including rodents (rats, squirrels) and non-human primates (monkeys, monkeys).
According to him, this direct contact transmission can also occur between animals. Monkeypox transmission from human to human is mainly through respiratory droplets which generally require long close contact.
Transmission can also be through direct contact with body fluids or material from smallpox lesions, indirect contact with contaminated objects, fabrics, and surfaces. Vertical transmission can occur and can lead to complications, congenital smallpox, or stillbirth.
“The incubation period for monkeypox generally ranges from 6 to 13 days. Patients are declared infectious from the time the rash begins to appear until desquamation or skin turnover. This process can take up to several weeks,” he said.
Symptoms of the disease in humans are very similar to those of smallpox, namely fever (> 38.5°C), weakness, chills with or without sweating, sore throat and cough, aches, swollen lymph glands, and headache. These symptoms will be followed by the appearance of a well-defined macular-papular rash, vesicular, pustular, to scab lesions.
The lesions last about 1 to 3 days at each stage and progress simultaneously. The areas where the lesions appeared were the face (98 percent), soles of the feet and hands (95 percent), oral mucous membranes (70 percent), genitals (28 percent), and conjunctiva (20 percent).
“In general, the lesions are more pronounced on the limbs and face than on the body. Manifestations in the genital area can be a diagnostic dilemma in the sexually transmitted disease (STD) population,” he said.
Wayan said vaccination or the use of smallpox vaccine (other orthopoxviruses such as vaccinia virus) at least provided partial protection against Monkeypox virus infection. In 2019, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the JYNNEOSTM vaccine to prevent Monkeypox with an effectiveness of up to 85 percent.
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