St James’ MOH defuse monkeypox fears

WESTERN BUREAU:

Dr Tanique Bailey-Small, the medical officer of health (MOH) for St James, says based on investigations conducted by the St James Health Department, there is no need to fear that the parish’s latest confirmed monkeypox patient may have spread the virus extensively.

Speaking at Thursday’s monthly meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation, Bailey-Small said that the health department’s contact tracing for the patient indicated a low risk of spreading the disease.

“We would have gotten this information in the latter part of August, and from the history we have received, the person did not attend any large gatherings. We would have already done contact tracing, and followed up on the persons identified as contacts, and from what we found in terms of the contacts, there was not any significantly high exposure,” said Bailey-Small.

However, the medical officer warned that if a monkeypox patient has a small body rash that is not easily visible, the chances of spreading the disease to others are significantly increased.

“One of the concerns with monkeypox is that if the person does not have a large rash, or if the rash is not very severe, it can be easily hidden. Therefore, there is a risk of contact and exposure to other persons, and for that reason we do stress the importance of being very cautious in our interaction with others,” said Bailey-Small. “There is a possibility that persons may become exposed, and it may not necessarily be in our large gatherings.”

MOST RECENT CASES

To date, there have been two confirmed monkeypox patients recorded in St James, with the latest case being one of two which were recently discovered in-country by the Ministry of Health. The other new case was found in St Elizabeth, where one previous case has already been recorded.

There have been ten recorded cases of monkeypox in Jamaica to date, of which the first two cases were recorded as coming from outside the island. Forty-five persons have so far been quarantined since the first case was recorded on July 6.

The monkeypox virus, which was discovered in 1958, is part of the same family of viruses as the variola virus which causes smallpox, although its symptoms are milder and deaths from the disease are rare.

In addition to a rash that looks like pimples or blisters on the face, inside the mouth, and on other parts of the body, symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, and exhaustion. The symptoms can last between two to four weeks.

Bailey-Small also told Thursday’s meeting that the St James Health Department continues to be on the lookout for other diseases such as dengue fever and COVID-19.

“We continue our disease surveillance and monitoring for the parish, both at our ports of entry and our various facilities, particularly at this time. We have some endemic conditions that we do get cases of every year, and we have to be very mindful of them,” said Bailey-Small.