Government sets up task force on monkeypox

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 1

The Kerala Government today confirmed India’s first monkeypox death — that of a 22-year-old youth, who returned from the UAE on July 22, was hospitalised on July 27 and died on July 30.

Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry has set up a task force to advise it on the matter. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the National Institute of Virology, Pune, had confirmed that the patient was positive for monkeypox and it was a West African variant.

NIV sources told The Tribune that the deceased also had encephalitis and seizures that come with it.

Kerala has isolated 20 contacts of the deceased as per protocol. The CM has also ordered a high-level probe into the case by a medical board. State Health Minister Veena George added that though the patient had tested positive for monkeypox in the UAE on July 19, the family disclosed his status only on July 30. There, however, remain question marks on how the patient reached Kerala without detection of his condition since he was already positive for the disease. The Kerala monkeypox death, India’s first, would likely also be the world’s only fourth death from the virus outside of Africa.

Of the three deaths previously — one in Brazil and two in Spain — two patients reported encephalitis and seizures much like the Kerala youth who died.

India has six confirmed cases — four in Kerala, including the youth who died, and two in Delhi.

The deceased was admitted to a private hospital in Thrissur.

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