WHO calls for vigilance against viral disease / Photo: EFE
The World Health Organization (WHO) insisted on Tuesday that it recommends the use of masks only for healthcare personnel in contact with MPOX patients and for their caregivers if they are outside a hospital setting.
An outbreak of a new mpox subvariant (clade Ib), an infectious disease formerly known as monkeypox, has been declared in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with cases in other surrounding countries and one in Europe.
In the DRC, 18,000 cases have been reported, including suspected cases, of this subvariant, which is believed to be more easily transmitted than the variant that has been circulating for decades in this country (clade Ia) and the one that caused an epidemic outbreak that spread to numerous countries in 2022 (clade II).
Collective alarm
This easier transmission is causing some concern and concern about the risk of its spread, particularly after it became known that nearly 30% of cases in the DRC are in children under five years of age.
WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris stressed that infection occurs through very close skin-to-skin contact, with a limited risk of transmission through aerosols expelled from the mouth of an infected person and only when one is face-to-face with the sick person.
The organization is encouraging research centers to continue studying the genetic sequences of the virus to fully understand how it is transmitted.
New York / EFE
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2024-08-27 17:25:10
