The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has heightened its surveillance and emergency response systems to quickly detect possible cases of monkey pox (Mpox) which has surged in the sub-region.

It follows a declaration of the disease by the African Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) as a “public health emergency” of security concern on the continent, on Tuesday.

Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe

According to the Centre, what begun as an endemic strain known as Clade 1 has now changed into a new variant called Clade 1 b, spreading more through routine contact particularly among children and has so far affected over 15,000 people, caus­ing 461 deaths in 18 countries, this year.

In an interview yesterday in Accra, the Director for Public Health, Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, said the Service had reactivated its surveillance on the disease and putting orienting health professionals on early detection of cases.

He said although the country had recorded cases of Mpox in the last two years, it had not recorded any, this year.

“We have heightened surveillance, and the clinicians are also being re-trained. Early detection is what we are work­ing on and thankfully, we have the reference laboratory that has also improved our case confirmation from relying on Noguchi alone previously.

Sensitisation is also going on and there are even dis­cussions ongoing by WHO for it to be declared a public health emergency of international concern so that we can all intensify efforts to prevent a wider outbreak,” Dr Bekoe said.

Clinical Epidemiologist and Public Health Physician, Professor Fred Binka, reacting to the development said the declaration by Africa CDC called for countries to be on high alert for the disease.

“The rate of spread shows that the “Clade 1b” strain is highly infectious so for countries like Ghana, all our 16 regions must be ready and looking out for both positive and negative results.

In this case, negative results are also important and people must report. Once we suspect that there are cases, we must make sure that we are supplying the facilities with reagents so that they will be able to do the initial diagnosis and then send it to our reference laboratories for confir­mation,” he advised.

Prof. Binka while expressing hope of a possibility of vaccines to help control the epidemic urged the public to quickly report to the nearest health facility on the onset of persistent malaria-like symptoms.

“When you have the fever, feel nauseous or muscle pain, do a test. If it doesn’t confirm malaria, remember that it can be some other disease, like in this case, Mpox, and then seek for further tests to be done.

If you see somebody who has rashes, advise the person to go to the hospital and let them take the specimens and test because that will give us a clue where the virus is so that we can follow it and be able to test people around you who have had contacts and be able to contain it,” he urged.

In 2022, Ghana recorded 120 cases of Mpox with four deaths and eight cases, last year.

Mpox is a zoonotic disease caused by a virus that be­longs to the same family as that which causes smallpox.

It is mainly transmitted to humans through direct con­tact with the bodily fluids of infected rodents or primates.

Human-to-human transmission primarily occurs through close personal contact with an infected individual via respiratory droplets, direct contact with bodily fluids or indirect contact with lesion material (e.g., contaminated clothing or bedding).

Symptoms of Monkeypox typically appears within five to16 days after exposure but can develop up to 21 days.

Symptoms generally include fever, headache, muscle aches and backaches, swollen lymph nodes, chills, exhaus­tion, and a distinctive rash characterised by lesions that progress through several stages before falling off.

Most people fully recover from the disease within four weeks and is dependent on how mild or severe symptoms present in a patient.

It can, however, cause death in extreme cases.