Hence, Central Kalimantan's quarantine agency officials have been directed to conduct stricter inspection as a precautionary measure against any untoward incident, the Central Kalimantan provincial government's secretary, Fahrizal Fitri, remarked here on Thursday.
In spite of the province reporting no monkeypox case, the local government has appealed to its people to promptly notify about any monkeypox case, he remarked.
Authorities and community members must be heedful of those becoming symptomatic with signs of this viral disease that bear resemblance to those observed in smallpox sufferers in their neighborhood areas.
Fitri emphasized that if people spot someone exhibiting these symptoms, they should report it and send the ailing individual to local hospitals for medical treatment and take precautionary measures against the further spread of this viral disease, he noted.
The United Nations World Health Organization's (WHO's) fact sheet describes monkeypox as a rare viral zoonosis, or a virus spread to humans from animals, that is found mainly in the remote areas of central and west Africa, near tropical rainforests.
The monkeypox virus causes a viral disease with symptoms in humans similar, but milder to those seen in smallpox patients. Nonetheless, monkeypox can be potentially deadly.
Monkeypox virus belongs to the orthopoxvirus genus in the family poxviridae and largely spread from various wild animals, such as rodents and primates, to people, but has limited secondary spread through human-to-human transmission.
No particular treatment or vaccination is presently available, though prior smallpox inoculation was found to be increasingly effective in also preventing monkeypox.
According to the WHO, monkeypox was first detected in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, earlier known as Zaire, in a boy aged nine in a region where smallpox had been eradicated in 1968.
Thereafter, most cases were reported in rural and rainforest regions of the Congo Basin and western Africa, specifically in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it is viewed as being endemic.
Translator: Kasriadi, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Bambang Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2019
