Monkeypox, the zoonotic
disease, has infected a man in Delhi, multiple Indian news sites reported
quoting sources. The Monkeypox case in Delhi is the fourth in India after three
other cases were found in the southern state of Kerala. The person suffering
from monkeypox in Delhi is reported to be 31 years old and has no history of
foreign travel. News of the monkeypox case in Delhi arrived after the World
Health Organization (WHO) raised its highest alert tagging monkeypox as a ‘global
health emergency’.

The Delhi man
infected with monkeypox attended a party in Himachal Pradesh’s Manali, PTI
reported citing sources. He was hospitalised with monkeypox symptoms three days
ago and his samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology Saturday. A
total of 16 laboratories have been designated to test for monkeypox, two of
them for Kerala.

Also Read | WHO declares monkeypox a global emergency. What does it mean?

Monkeypox, a
zoonotic disease, has symptoms similar to small pox but is milder. The virus
spreads among people and animals through direct and indirect contact. Monkeypox
is transmitted among people through respiratory droplets or by touching an infected
person’s skin or lesions.

Nearly 16,000
monkeypox cases have been reported across 75 countries. Five people have
succumbed to the disease in Africa. In South Asia, four cases have been
reported in India and one case in Thailand.

On Sunday, the
regional director of WHO’s South-Asia region, Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, called
on nations to strengthen surveillance and public health measures for monkeypox.
She added that cases are largely concentrated among men who have sex with men
and “it is possible to curtail further spread of the disease with focussed
efforts among at-risk populations.”

Also Read | What is Imvanex, the monkeypox vaccine?

“Importantly, our
focused efforts should be sensitive, devoid of stigma or discrimination,” said
the WHO official adding: “Though the risk of monkeypox globally and in the
Region is moderate, the potential of its further international spread is real.”

“…There are still
many unknowns about the virus. We need to stay alert and prepared to roll out
intense response to curtail further spread of monkeypox,” Singh said.

The WHO called
monkeypox a global public health emergency on Saturday after the global agency’s
director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, convened a meeting of the
International Health Regulations (IHR) emergency committee on the monkeypox
outbreak across multiple countries.