Liputan6.com, New South Wales – Health authorities in the state of New South Wales (NSW) Australia have detected a third case of monkeypox in a man who had recently returned from Europe.
The man in his 50s developed mild symptoms a few days after arriving in Sydney, and was tested for monkeypox after visiting his doctor with similar symptoms.
It follows the state’s first two cases, a man who returned from Europe on May 20, and a man who traveled from the state of Queensland.
NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said the three existing cases had not been linked to state contact tracers.
“monkey pox poses no risk of transmission to the general public, and is recently not an infection that most doctors in NSW would look for or worry about in their patients,” Chant said on Friday.
In the past, monkeypox had plagued parts of Africa, but since mid-May it has spread globally, especially in Europe.
In a recent interview with Xinhua, Australian National University (ANU) virologist David Tscharke said the virus is likely to spread slowly because transmission requires very close contact.
“If the virus behaves in the same way as previous outbreaks, we wouldn’t expect much spread. It will be a matter of careful monitoring to see if these people spread the virus further.”
He called for the smallpox vaccine, which is effective against the virus, to be used for close contact with people who have monkeypox.
“The main thing with monkeypox virus infection is that vaccination can be effective even after you’ve been exposed to the virus, making it possible to vaccinate all recent close contacts of a case.”
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video-gallery--item__video-caption_read-video-article">Starting on 7 May 2022, the United Kingdom reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) one confirmed case of monkeypox. This man does have a history of traveling to Nigeria which is one of the monkeypox endemic countries.
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