ICMR NIV Pune, VRDLs conduct approx 100 sample tests for Monkeypox
Staff, 2022-08-03 04:17:44,
A day after a 35-year-old man of African origin with no recent history of foreign travel tested positive for Monkeypox in Delhi thereby taking the total count to 8 in the country, a top scientist has said that Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratories (VRDL) has tested about a 100 samples till Wednesday morning.
Speaking to ANI today, Dr Pragya Yadav, a senior scientist at ICMR-NIV, Pune said, “Till August 2 morning, we have tested approximately 100 samples at ICMR-NIV Pune and VRDL.” Notably, the National Centre for Disease Control in Delhi has also started testing samples for detecting Monkeypox as ICMR-NIV is sharing reagents with NCDC and with a network of 15 laboratories spread across the country.
“There are 15 Virus research and diagnostic laboratories (VRDLs) trained to undertake the diagnostic testing with ICMR -NIV Pune. We have shared reagents to NCDC, Delhi and AIIMS Delhi for performing testing. ICMR-NIV, Pune is a nodal center for testing and coordination,” said Dr Pragya Yadav.
Upon being questioned whether samples are still pending for testing, she said, “We do not have any samples pending for testing as of now. Sample testing is a continuous process and it is being processed.” “Samples are collected on the basis of guidelines issued by the Union Health Ministry,” she said Upon being asked whether ICMR- NIV has isolated the virus and what is the next step that it is most likely to take to control the spread of the virus, Dr Pragya further opined, “Isolation of Monkeypox virus is carried out in Vero cells using the clinical specimens of Monkeypox virus positive confirmed case.” “To characterize further, Monkeypox virus isolates in cell culture and animal model. To develop indigenous serological assays for Monkeypox diagnosis and for sero-surveillance studies and to develop a vaccine candidate and assess its immunogenicity in animal models.” On surveillance, she said, “VRDL network is already strengthened to undertake the surveillance as well as a differential diagnosis of the suspected cases.” India’s monkeypox tally touched eight on Tuesday with two more cases being confirmed — one in Kerala and the other in Delhi.
The case in Kerala is of a 30-year-old man who returned last week from the UAE. The state’s Monkeypox tally has now touched five. Notably, all 5 of them have a history of travel to the UAE.
Monkeypox Virus In Indian Patient Is Milder West African Clade: Niv | Pune News
Staff, 2022-07-27 21:53:00,
There are two groups of the monkeypox virus — the west African (WA) clade and the central African (Congo Basin) clade. The Congo Basin clade has historically caused more severe disease.
India has reported four monkeypox cases — one with no travel history.
All cases in the current outbreak (in newly affected countries) have been found infected by the West African clade.
At the NIV, scientists found it through full genetic sequencing of the virus, after isolating it from the sample of the Indian patient who tested positive last week.
“The nucleotide sequence comparison revealed sequence identity of over 99% with the monkeypox virus strain of 2022, and it belonged to the West African Clade,” Dr Priya Abraham, director of the ICMR-NIV, told TOI. An NIV team led by scientist Dr Pragya Yadav assisted in the sequencing process.
Sequencing helps development of vaccines and targeted drugs. It also determine properties such as transmissibility and mortality rate.
“Moreover, this sequencing will also serve as a baseline for comparison in case the virus evolves,” said infectious diseases expert Dr Sanjay Pujari, a member of the national Covid-19 task force.
Dr Pujari said the NIV’s finding is in line with epidemiology of the current MPX outbreak. “The west African strain is mostly self-limiting with low mortality. Historically, the Congo basin strain never left Africa despite the high disease burden in Congo,” he said.
The WA clade has been associated with an overall lower case fatality ratio (CFR) of less than 1% while the Congo Basin clade appears to more frequently cause severe disease with a reported CFR that can touch 10%. Both estimates are based on infections among a generally younger population, in the African setting.
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monkeypox: Indians turn globe-trotters despite high fares and Monkeypox threat
Staff, 2022-07-27 14:18:45,
Indian carriers are seeing higher passenger occupancy levels on their international flights than what they recorded pre-Covid, executives and industry watchers said. IndiGo, India’s biggest carrier by market share, is filling up more seats on its flights to the Middle East than it did more than two years ago, when Covid-19 was yet to hit global air travel. “Flights to the UAE and Saudi Arabia are doing extremely well,” said a person in the know.
Vistara is clocking passenger load factors of up to 80% on some of its flights.
Deveekaa Nijhawan, a spokesperson from Qatar Tourism, said with less than four months to go for the FIFA World Cup that the Arab nation hosts, the response from India has been “incredible”.
“We are expecting more than 1 million tourists for the FIFA World Cup, and we anticipate that India will be one of the most significant contributors. We look forward to accelerating our efforts to maintain momentum and fully unlock the potential of Indian travellers,” she added.
Qatar saw a steady increase in visitor arrivals from India with double-digit growth from 2019-2021, with India ranking as the highest source market.
Demand for travel to Singapore is also high as the Southeast Asian country has eased entry norms, said a person in the know. Of the 1.5 million visitors that Singapore received in the first half of this year, Indians represented the second biggest group with over 219,000 visiting the city state.
GB Srithar, regional director, India, Middle East, South Asia & Africa at the Singapore Tourism Board, said July numbers were healthy and the island continues to receive “good” visitor numbers from India. “Changi Airport is already seeing a restoration of about 70% of India’s pre-Covid flight capacity, covering over 180 weekly services,” he added.
A spokesperson for Singapore Airlines in India said the carrier is restoring its India network to pre-pandemic levels in the coming months. “SIA operates 73 flights a week from eight cities across India. This will increase to 80 flights a week by August 2, 2022, and 91 flights a week from September 1, 2022,” she said, adding there was robust growth in both leisure and corporate segments. EaseMyTrip CEO Nishant Pitti said European countries such as France, Spain and…
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Government holds urgent meet, travellers from abroad ‘put on watch’- The New Indian Express
Staff, 2022-07-24 21:22:00,
NEW DELHI: Soon after the reports of the monkeypox case surfaced in Delhi, the Union health ministry conducted a meeting which was held by Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan.
The ministry has asked the states and union territories to keep a close watch on foreign travellers and Indians who have come from abroad.
The ministry also advised the Delhi government for contact tracing and to submit a report soon. A 34-year-old man from Delhi with no history of foreign travel tested positive for monkeypox, taking India’s tally of cases to four and prompting the Centre to hold a high-level review meeting, the government said on Sunday.
Three cases of monkeypox was earlier reported from Kerala. The patient who is presently recovering at a designated isolation centre at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital in Delhi had attended a stag party in Manali in Himachal Pradesh recently, official sources said.
According to official sources, so far nine contacts, including family members of the patients, have been quarantined and they are being followed up.
They are asymptomatic as of now. The west Delhi resident was isolated at LNJP hospital here three days ago after he showed symptoms of the disease. Union Health Ministry officials said his samples were sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune on Saturday which came out positive.
“The person is recovering at the designated isolation centre at the LNJP hospital. The close contacts of the case have been identified and are under quarantine following the health ministry guidelines,” they said.
“Public health interventions like identification of the source of infection, enhanced contact tracing, testing, and sensitisation of private practitioners are being carried out.
A high-level review of the situation has been planned by the Directorate General of Health Sciences on Sunday at 3 pm,” the ministry said.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Saturday declared monkeypox a global public health emergency of international concern. Globally, over 16,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported from 75 countries and there have been five deaths so far.
In the WHO South-East Asia Region, besides India, one case has been detected in Thailand. According to sources, Director General of Health Services (DGHS) Atul Goel on Sunday reviewed the monkeypox situation in the country and directed the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to carry out…
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Second New Zealand monkeypox case confirmed
Staff, 2022-07-11 18:47:04,
What you need to know about the virus that causes monkeypox.
Video / AP / Getty
A second case of monkeypox has been confirmed in New Zealand.
The person, who has a record of recent overseas travel, is isolating in the northern region.
“This case is not linked to the case reported on Saturday, and there is no evidence of any community transmission of monkeypox,” the Ministry of Health said.
Public health advice had assessed the risk of transmission from this case as low.
“To protect the privacy of the case and contacts, we will be making no further comment on this case,” the ministry said.
Health officials reported the first case of monkeypox in New Zealand at the weekend.
Ministry public health advice for those with monkeypox is to isolate at home until the scabs from lesions have fallen off.
Health officials also ask close contacts to monitor for symptoms for three weeks and isolate if symptoms develop.
The ministry said monkeypox does not easily spread between people so the risk to the public is low.
“Person to person spread may occur through intimate contact with an infected person, including kissing, direct contact with a person’s infected lesions, contact with contaminated bed linen or clothes, and respiratory droplets from an individual with monkeypox.”
A rash, which typically looks similar to chicken pox, appears after a few days.
Monkeypox in NZ ‘inevitable’
Since a cluster of the viral disease was confirmed in the UK in May, the outbreak has grown to more than 8000 cases and spread to 57 countries as far-flung as Venezuela, Iceland, Latvia and South Korea.
“Once we reached that many cases in the world, and Australia was recording 20 of them, we were always going to see it in New Zealand. I don’t think there was any ever question of that,” Otago…
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Combating monkeypox during COVID-19
Staff, 2022-06-19 19:18:00,
In a recent Viruses study, scientists at James Cook University, Australia, describe the global prevalence and significance of the current monkeypox virus outbreak.
Study: Travel-Related Monkeypox Outbreaks in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic: Are We Prepared? Image Credit: Dotted Yeti / Shutterstock.com
Discovery of monkeypox virus
The monkeypox virus is a rare zoonotic virus that causes smallpox-like symptoms in humans. The virus was first detected in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa.
Soon after the outbreaks of monkeypox infections were reported in Nigeria in 2017, several monkeypox cases were detected outside of Africa that have been attributed to travel-related transmission. Taken together, 49, 47, eight, 34, and 21 sporadic cases of monkeypox have been reported in Nigeria in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, respectively.
The current monkeypox outbreak
The first outbreak of monkeypox infection outside of Africa was identified in the U.S. in 2003. Afterward, no confirmed cases were detected outside of Africa until 2018. Between 2018 and 2022, a total of 11 travel-related monkeypox cases were identified in the U.K., Singapore, Israel, and the U.S.
Since April 2022, several countries throughout Europe, as well as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States have reported outbreaks of monkeypox infection. Although these cases do not appear to be directly related to travel from endemic regions, the initial imported case in each nation originated from Nigeria.
As of June 16, 2022, over 1,300 cases of monkeypox infection have been reported in 28 different countries across the world. Since the discovery of monkeypox infection in 1970, this is the largest number of cases to ever be reported outside of Africa.
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African Nations Should Receive Monkeypox Vaccines First To Avoid Covid Inequality, Agencies Warn
Staff, 2022-06-16 09:11:17,
Topline
Any vaccination campaign against monkeypox should “begin in Africa,” the acting head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Thursday, as worries grow wealthy countries will repeat missteps of the Covid-19 pandemic and ignore the continent in a rush to secure scarce supplies.
Covid vaccine protests in Africa, where many were unable to secure needed shots.
Key Facts
Countries in the continent hardest-hit by the disease have not received any monkeypox vaccines despite seeing more infectionse, higher risks and broader geographical spread than elsewhere, said acting director of Africa CDC Ahmed Ogwell Ouma.
Ouma stressed that vaccines must be shared and warned that the outbreak in Africa is “not yet contained.”
He cautioned against repeating the situation African countries faced during the Covid-19 pandemic, where the continent was unable to secure life saving vaccines as wealthy countries snapped up supplies.
Ouma said there have been 1,597 suspected cases of monkeypox recorded across Africa this year, 66 of which have been fatal.
He said infections have been confirmed in nine different countries: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Congo Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Morocco, Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
What To Watch For
The World Health Organization’s response. Ouma said the Africa CDC was working with the WHO to secure vaccines used to tackle monkeypox. While the WHO does not recommend mass vaccination for monkeypox in light of the outbreak, it said on Thursday that the continent should be prepared for this eventuality. Dr. Moeti Tshidi, the WHO’s regional director for…
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Level 2 Travel Alert Due To Monkeypox, Here’s What This Means
Staff, 2022-05-29 10:03:30,
Schwabing Hospital in Munich is where the first patient with monkeypox in Germany is being treated. … [+]
dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has just presented some next level stuff when it comes to traveling during the current monkeypox outbreak. The outbreak, which has already resulted in over 200 confirmed and over 100 suspected cases in over 20 different countries has prompted the CDC to move its travel advisory from Level 1 to Level 2. Level 2 is the “Alert” level, corresponding to “Practice Enhanced Precautions.” Level 1 was the “Watch” level, which simply meant “Practice Usual Precautions.”
The CDC has a total of three possible levels when it comes to monkeypox travel advisories. The highest level would be Level 3, which is the the “Warning” level and corresponds to “Avoid Nonessential Travel.” Clearly, like golf scores and the number of times a marmot hits you in the groin with a golf club, the higher the number, the worse things are. While Level 2 does not really restrict where you can travel, as the name of the level implies, it does mean that you should be alerted to practice some “enhanced precautions.”
What are these so-called enhanced precautions? Well, the CDC lists several things that travels should avoid. One is “Close contact with sick people, including those with skin lesions or genital lesions.” So, if you are in the habit of touching other people’s lesions while you are traveling, stop it. Of course, this is probably something that you should avoid doing at any time, even when you are not traveling and even when there isn’t a monkeypox outbreak.
A second thing…
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Monkeypox is largely a self-limiting disease, but high-risk groups can have severe consequences
Staff, 2022-05-27 06:06:45,
Why? Dr Pragya Yadav is the country’s top scientist at the ICMR-National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune. She is the group leader of the Maximum containment laboratory at the apex lab, where highly infectious viruses, like the one that causes Monkeypox, would be handled and tested. The Health ministry has directed public health officials at ports, airports and land borders to keep a close watch on suspected Monkeypox cases with the international travel to India. Such cases would be isolated and their clinical specimens would be sent to NIV.
The WHO says that its partner countries are working to better understand the extent and cause of the outbreak of Monkeypox. What do we know so far about this outbreak?
Cases have been reported since May 13. So far 18 countries have reported these cases, all of which are non-endemic for the monkeypox and outside Africa.This has alerted public health authorities around the world. Different approaches to preparedness are being used by the WHO and member states for handling patients and testing the samples. The United Kingdom (UK) has also reported community transmission of Monkeypox, which has made the situation worrisome. But so far, no associated deaths have been reported.
There are no established travel links to the endemic area. This is another concern that raises an alarm. We know that the Monkeypox virus belongs to Orthopoxvirus genus of the Poxviridae family which also contains then deadliest smallpox. Since these are DNA viruses, we need a PCR test. The majority of cases identified from the 18 countries belonged to the West African clade. Their genome sequencing was done from a lesion swab sample of a confirmed case in Portugal and has indicated a very close match of the Monkeypox virus causing the current outbreak,…
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