The specialist emphasized prevention and education.
Dr. Miguel Colón, infectious disease specialist at Hospital Auxilio Mutuo. Photo: Journal of Medicine and Public Health. Fabiola Plaza.
“I have no doubt that cases can be presented in Puerto Rico. The world is small because of the airlines, because a person can get on an asymptomatic plane and then be a contagious patient”, as indicated by the Dr. Miguel Coloninfectious disease specialist Hospital Loanin an exclusive interview with the Journal of Medicine and Public Health.
The infectologist clarified that although cases could well occur, it would not be as severe as COVID-19, “we already have an approved vaccine against human smallpox and it has been proven that it works against this monkeypox. What is recommended is the administration of the vaccine, ”he said.
Colón indicated that this is not the time to alarm, but to prevent, “we have the measures, the vaccines, the antivirals. It is a question of making an early diagnosis and my recommendation is that any skin eruption, accompanied by the production of lymph nodes, these people have to call their doctor and get oriented, it is not to run to the doctors’ offices, because, but rather you are going to infect more people.”
He clarified that this type of infection is common in African countries and compared it with dengue, regarding the daily nature of the disease, but not so in the medical care that should be given to the patient, “it is interesting how we see cases of dengue among thousand and two thousand and in Nigeria and the Congo, it is something common, but more people travel to safaris and let the monkeys get close and there is contact with the animal, possibly infected.
The World Health Organization indicated that efforts in public health should focus on the following aspects:
*Reduce the risk of transmission from animals to people. Transmission prevention efforts in endemic regions should focus on avoiding any contact with rodents and primates and, secondly, limiting direct exposure to blood and meat, and cooking them thoroughly before consumption. Gloves and other appropriate protective clothing should be worn during handling of sick animals or their infected tissues, and during slaughter procedures.
*Reduce the risk of person-to-person transmission. Close physical contact with people infected with monkeypox virus should be avoided. To assist the sick, gloves and protective equipment should be used. Hands should be washed systematically after assisting or visiting a sick person. It is recommended to isolate patients at home or in health centers.
On the other hand, people who have already been vaccinated against smallpox have protection against monkeypox, “that vaccine was stopped in 1980, since the disease was considered eradicated. In such a way that those people who are under 38 years old are extremely vulnerable to this infection.”
As a result of this new viral process, the Centers for Control and Prevention (CDC) indicated that the vaccine will be applied to people who have been close to positive patients. “It is not going to be massively vaccinated. The mortality of this virus appears to come from a strain from Nigeria, which has only 1 percent mortality; what happens is that at this moment there are so many immunocompromised people that the right thing to do is to vaccinate those who were exposed”.
He recalled that smallpox has already been eradicated, but this type of smallpox is used as a biological weapon, so it is not that it does not exist, but rather that it exists as an arsenal in the biological weapons of the world’s powers.
Monkeypox is the one that obviously gives the animal, in this case the symptoms that are produced by skin lesions, and this liquid is extremely infectious, it produces fever, malaise, shortness of breath. The most important thing is that it produces adenopathy, a differential factor between eradicated smallpox and monkeypox, which is not a sexually transmitted disease.
See the interview here:
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