Kolkata: Health officials and immigration officers at Kolkata airport have been alerted to be on the lookout for passengers suffering from fever, rashes of swollen lymph nodes in the hands and face. They have been instructed to isolate and send them to the Infectious Diseases & Beliaghata General Hospital to check if the person is afflicted with monkeypox.
While health officials deployed at the airport will conduct a visual surveillance, immigration authorities have been asked to alert them if they find a person with recent travel history to Europe, the US and Africa displaying symptoms of monkeypox.
Cases of monkeypox have been reported from the UK, the US, Portugal, Spain, and some other European countries.
However, the alert is only verbal as of now as no cases have yet been detected in India. With no direct flights from the three continents to Kolkata, the scanner will primarily be on passengers arriving on flights from the Gulf.
"Any sick passenger with a travel history to monkeypox-affected countries will have to be isolated and samples sent to the BSL4 facility of the National Institute of Virology in Pune for investigation," an official said.
According to the WHO, monkeypox manifests in humans with fever, rashes and swollen lymph nodes and may lead to a range of medical complications. It is usually a self-limited disease with the symptoms lasting from two to four weeks but can take a severe form, with the case fatality ratio around 3 to 6% in recent times.
24/05/22 Times of India
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