No border restrictions for monkeypox

Despite the United States being declared as the epicentre of the global outbreak for the monkeypox virus, Health and Wellness Minister Dr Christopher Tufton says there are no plans to tighten border control restrictions for visitors entering Jamaica at this time.

He made the declaration while speaking to The Gleaner on Thursday evening, following the Western Regional Health Authority's COVID-19 Partners Recognition Gala at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in Rose Hall, St James.

“We do have a strong surveillance system, sharpened more so by the experience with COVID-19, which is a much more difficult virus to detect. Our port health border control personnel are very seasoned with the threat that monkeypox poses, as they are with COVID-19, and there is increased vigilance at our ports of entry, both to observe, to do temperature checks, and to visibly check [for symptoms], and that is likely to continue and to be intensified,” said Tufton.

“There is no discussion that is taking place around anything to do with restrictions. What we are rather doing at this point is to educate the public and to be vigilant in terms of surveillance, and we believe that, for now, those two responses will go a far way in controlling the possibility of any sort of extensive outbreak,” Tufton added.

As at Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded 4,906 cases of monkeypox in the United States, the highest number in any given country out of the 21,148 cases recorded across 78 locations worldwide.

Jamaica has, to date, recorded two cases of monkeypox, with the first case being reported on July 6 after the patient returned to the island from the United Kingdom, and the second case being reported on July 24 after that patient returned from New York in the United States.

Regarding the two local monkeypox cases, Tufton said the Ministry of Health has done everything possible to reduce the chances of community spread.

“We have isolated the individuals, we have done contact tracing, we have quarantined persons who we think have been very close contacts, and we have educated the respective communities, and I think it has worked up to this point. Having said all that, it [monkeypox] is still an emerging threat that needs to be observed and monitored, and we are doing that, and once we continue doing that, we will be in a good position,” said Tufton.

- Christopher Thomas

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