No mass vaccinations against monkeypox, says KJ

 

The health ministry has a five-point plan to combat monkeypox outbreaks in the country. (AP pic)

PETALING JAYA: There are no cases of monkeypox in the country and the health ministry is not planning to conduct mass vaccinations for the disease, as it did for Covid-19.

However, the ministry has already devised a plan of action to handle monkeypox which is spreading in several countries.

“Even if we want to carry out vaccination exercises, we will only focus on close contacts and high-risk healthcare workers,” minister Khairy Jamaluddin said.

Khairy outlined the ministry’s five-point plan to combat monkeypox outbreaks in the country at a press conference today: early detection, strengthening disease diagnostic capabilities, case management, controlling outbreaks and clusters, and increasing community awareness about the disease.

Giving details, Khairy said the government would step up monitoring at all international gateways into Malaysia, including the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, to prevent its spread in the country.

He said more laboratories would be established to run monkeypox tests as there were only two now. The government will help improve the capabilities of veterinary labs to run zoonotic surveillance tests on animals as well.

Both government and private clinics are required to do monkeypox screening on patients and immediately refer them to hospitals for isolation, treatment and observation should they exhibit symptoms.

To control any outbreak, backward and forward contact tracing will be carried out, and a 21-day home quarantine will be mandated for patients. Symptomatic patients will be sent to hospitals for isolation and further treatment.

Khairy also said that an alert for monkeypox had been added to the MySejahtera app and it would be activated tomorrow. Daily notifications will be sent to travellers arriving from monkeypox endemic countries or countries with monkeypox cases. They will be required to monitor their health status for 21 days.

On the hand-foot-and-mouth disease (HFMD), Khairy said 1,370 outbreaks involving 5,203 cases were detected from Jan 1 until yesterday. The highest number of outbreaks was recorded in Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya (479), followed by Selangor (161), and Perak (151). The majority of outbreaks originated in kindergartens and daycare centres.

As of yesterday, only two children with HFMD were reported to require intensive care unit treatment. “Two is still a lot and we will try to bring it down to zero,” Khairy said. - FMT