Mild in adults, monkeypox can be more serious in children. Explanations when a first case was recorded in a child schooled in France.
This Saturday, health authorities recorded the first confirmed case of monkeypox in a child in France.
However, if the disease is particularly mild in adults, it should be noted that serious cases occur more frequently in children, pregnant women and immunocompromised people. “Its mortality rate remains generally low”, assures Public Health France since it “is less than 10% in the cases observed throughout the world”.
What risks?
In children, pregnant women and immunocompromised people, monkeypox can be complicated in several ways:
– major eruption (more than 100 vesicles) which can sometimes generate superinfections or generalized infections,
– digestive or ENT problems (with local compressions),
– eye damage (corneal damage),
– neurological complications (encephalitic signs),
– serious forms at the pulmonary level (pneumopathy).
After the first case affecting a minor registered in France this Saturday evening, the health authorities therefore call for vigilance even if, for the moment, they are committed “to tracing the chain of contacts of the child” who presents “no sign of gravity.”
The parents of children who are at-risk contacts at the school attended by the child have also received the following recommendations, which can be applied to anyone who has any doubts:
– Monitor the appearance of symptoms (fever, rash) and call 15 if necessary;
– To be offered a consultation in order to have the child benefit from a vaccination if this is deemed necessary by the doctor;
– In the absence of symptoms, and in the state of knowledge, there is no known risk of contagion. No measure is therefore necessary for the child (neither isolation nor adaptation of activities) nor for the other members of the family.
“Low transmission risk”
The ARS Ile-de-France recalled, this Saturday evening, that “the characteristics and the contagiousness of this disease mean that it can also affect children in a family setting by sharing linens, living rooms, by cutlery This is the case in some countries where this virus is endemic and where transmission can occur through close contact with a person showing signs of the disease (rash in the form of ‘pimples’). transmission, for the general population, is assessed as low.”
Note that at this stage, “the cases reported in Europe are mostly mild, and there are no reported deaths”.
