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Vietnam likely to record more new monkeypox cases |
The Ministry of Health yesterday sent an official dispatch to directors of health departments in provinces and cities nationwide, requesting to set out the legal framework for surveillance activities and protective measures against the monkeypox epidemic.
Accordingly, local health authorities need to strengthen infection control supervision at medical facilities, community-based supervision and at border gates together with supervision of HIV/AIDS prevention activities.
The health sector in each locality should also enhance supervision at gynecological and dermatology clinics, and public and private medical facilities providing HIV/AIDS prevention services including HIV testing, PrEP pre-exposure prophylaxis, ARV treatment to detect disease cases, clusters of cases, and sources of infection; thereby, they will also provide consulting, care and treatment services for patients.
Localities must strengthen the management of cases of monkeypox and human contact to prevent further infection from spreading to the community and prevent infection among medical staff. Additionally, local administrations and healthcare facilities should carry out HIV counseling and testing for infected people and partners of monkeypox patients.
For suspected cases who are experiencing symptoms of the disease, healthcare workers should take their samples for tests carried out by the Pasteur Institute or regional institutes of Hygiene and Epidemiology.
At the same time, the health sector in each locality should proactively build and update prevention and control plans and scenarios according to their real situations so that the health sector will be ready to cope with the occurrence of epidemics in the area.
Accordingly, medical institutions should prepare enough drugs, equipment, human resources, and funds for the collection of patients and treatment as well as prevention of the epidemics.
According to the assessment of the Ministry of Health, monkeypox is a newly recorded epidemic in our country but the pathogen has spread in the community; as a result, in the coming time, Vietnam will likely continue to record new cases of the disease, especially in big cities. Statistics from the beginning of July 2023 until now, the country recorded 56 cases of monkeypox, including 2 imported cases.
Seven provinces and cities have recorded infection cases of the disease; worse, one death was reported in Ho Chi Minh City. Those aged 18-49 years are more likely to be infected with the disease. The majority of cases have been found in men who have sex with men or bisexual with 92.9 percent. In particular, up to 63 percent of cases of monkeypox are infected with HIV and 46 percent of cases of other sexually transmitted diseases.
