Ilocos region hospitals asked to prepare monkeypox isolation rooms

(FILES) In this file handout photo provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention taken in 1997 during an investigation into an outbreak of monkeypox, which took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), depicts the dorsal surfaces of a monkeypox case in a patient who was displaying the appearance of the characteristic rash during its recuperative stage. (Photo by Brian W.J. Mahy / Centers for Disease Control and Prevention / AFP)

LAOAG CITY, Ilocos Norte—Health facilities in the Ilocos region were asked to prepare isolation rooms following the first reported monkeypox case in the Philippines on Friday, July 29.

Dr. Rheuel Bobis, medical officer of the regional DOH, said Saturday, July 30, that they had been bracing for the possible entry of monkeypox in the region even before the first recorded case in the country was reported.

DOH’s Dr. Beverly Ho on Friday said the country’s first case is a 31-year-old Filipino national who arrived from abroad last July 19. The case had prior travel to countries with documented monkeypox cases.

Ho said the case was tested and confirmed positive for monkeypox through reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) done at the DOH Research Institute for Tropical Medicine on July 28.

Bobis said that the DOH had already coordinated with the provincial health offices and that health workers had been updated about the guidelines on conducting monkeypox surveillance, and determining the signs and symptoms of a patient possibly afflicted with the virus.

The regional DOH had appealed to Ilocos region residents to be vigilant and know the several symptoms associated with monkeypox.

Travelers who came from areas with confirmed cases of monkeypox and exhibiting symptoms should have themselves isolated and tested in a health facility, the regional DOH said.

According to Bobis, residents should “keep a distance” from a monkeypox-infected person as the disease could be transmitted through “close contact on the secretion of wounds of the patients.”

Earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) had sounded the alarm about the spread of monkeypox and declared a global health emergency.

Monkeypox is a virus that causes fever, rash, and swollen lymph nodes, according to WHO.

The virus could spread through touching or sharing infected items like clothing and bedding, or by of close contact with lesions, body fluids, respiratory droplets with an infected person, said WHO.

/MUF