By Website Writer; The Ministry of Health – Uganda has today Tuesday, July 26, 2022, received 2,400 test kits for Monkeypox from World Health Organization (WHO) to support testing for Monkeypox.
According to the health ministry, to-date, the country has carried out 70 tests and all turned negative.
Monkeypox is a viral zoonosis (a virus transmitted to humans from animals) with symptoms similar to those seen in the past in smallpox patients, although it is clinically less severe.
Monkeypox is transmitted to humans through close contact with an infected person or animal, or with material contaminated with the virus.
It is also from one person to another by close contact with lesions, body fluids, respiratory droplets and contaminated materials such as bedding.
With the eradication of smallpox in 1980 and subsequent cessation of smallpox vaccination, monkeypox has emerged as the most important orthopoxvirus for public health.
Newer vaccines have been developed of which one has been approved for prevention of monkeypox.
Since early May 2022, cases of monkeypox have been reported from countries where the disease is not endemic, and continue to be reported in several endemic countries. Most confirmed cases with travel history reported travel to countries in Europe and North America, rather than West or Central Africa where the monkeypox virus is endemic. This is the first time that many monkeypox cases and clusters have been reported concurrently in non-endemic and endemic countries in widely disparate geographical areas.
Most reported cases so far have been identified through sexual health or other health services in primary or secondary health-care facilities and have involved mainly, but not exclusively, men who have sex with men.
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