Kathmandu: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become the first Gulf state to record a case of monkeypox. The Czech Republic and Slovenia also reported their first cases yesterday, joining 18 other countries to detect the virus outside its usual African base. That number is expected to rise further still, but experts say the overall risk to the general population remains low. Outbreaks of the virus have been found in Europe, Australia, and America.
The symptoms often include fever and rash – but the infection is usually mild.
In the UAE, health officials announced a case had been detected in a traveler who had recently visited West Africa and is now receiving medical treatment. Authorities there say they are “fully prepared” to handle any outbreak, adding that early surveillance protocols for detecting the disease were in place.
The World Health Organization has said that the virus can be contained with the right response in countries outside of Africa where it is not usually detected.