A Public Health Expert at Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Dr Banda Khalifa, has urged the health authorities to scale up surveillance to ensure that other cases of monkey pox are detected and handled appropriately.

Dr. Banda indicated that it is a good thing that Ghana detected the Monkey pox in the country early enough to be able put in measures.

“It wasn’t a matter of if, it was a matter of when we were going to detect it because as we can see, the cases have been going up for sometime now.

“I won’t say we have to be worried now because Monkey pox is not as severe as other viral disease. The rate of spread is not as fast as Covid-19. It is a good thing we know we have some cases, we just have to strengthen our surveillance system and then detect them as early as possible.”
Dr Banda Khalifa

According to Dr. Banda, in protecting one’s self, the best way is to avoid coming into contact with people who have been confirmed to have the disease. He stated that if persons have any suspicion with anyone showing off symptoms, health officials must be alerted immediately.

“For any viral infection, it is spread through personal contact and more with monkey pox, the transmission is by body contact. So, unless we come very close to someone who has the disease. It is unlikely that you get infected.”
Dr Banda Khalifa

Symptoms are in two stages

Highlighting the symptoms, Dr. Banda disclosed that with monkey pox, the symptoms usually come in two stages. He noted that there is the stage where one will have fever, headache, general weakness and the latter stage has to do with the swelling in the armpit and on the body.

“Sometimes too, at the later stages where you have the eruption phase, you’ll find rashes that will develop on the skin. It’s in stages; it starts with a flat surface then later develops into a raised one and that is when you see that the virus is progressing.”
Dr Banda Khalifa

Dr. Banda intimated that with monkey pox, it could take about four weeks to clear. He noted that most people will clear the virus without any mortalities.

“As we know, the mortality rate for the virus especially in West Africa is about one percent and the one that is in Central African Republic is up to 11 percent.”
Dr Banda Khalifa

Dr. Banda’s comments came after Ghana recorded five cases of Monkey pox in the Eastern, Bono and Greater Accra regions. This was confirmed by the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, at a press briefing on Wednesday, June 8, 2022.

The Health Director averred that Monkey pox is a disease that is transmitted from animals to man and is very endemic in Nigeria and Cameroon but it is generally in West Africa. He stated that it moves from infected animals, rats, monkeys amongst others and then infect humans.

“Human to human transmission can also occur but there has to be very closed skin to skin contact, face to face contact or mouth to skin contact, these are the areas or that is how it can be transmitted from human to human.”
Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye