We need to raise the index of suspicion when it comes to the monkeypox virus says Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Roger Duncan.
Dr. Duncan said that while health authorities have been having this conversation with healthcare workers, it is important that public is also included.
He was, at the time, speaking at an open forum on Monkeypox, held earlier this week.
“We need to raise the index of suspicion of our people, and not just healthcare workers. We’ve been having conversations with healthcare workers about monkeypox—we need to spread the word our doctors, our nurses, our community health aid, we need everybody to have this high index of suspicion to say there is a rash, this possibly could be monkeypox, monkeypox is, you know, currently in the air and this is something that we need to think about,” Duncan said.
While speaking about the case definition for monkeypox, Dr. Duncan mentioned the broadness of the definition and gave the reason for it.
“We’ve drawn that probable case definition quite wide and there is a reason for that. We’d rather have things fall into this broad basket that will probably end up not being monkeypox than to make it narrow and things fall off the side that were monkeypox,” he said.
Dr. Duncan said that raising the index of suspicion will be vital going forward in dealing with monkeypox.
Symptoms of the disease include extreme exhaustion, rashes that start in the face, then spread to the hands then to the rest of the body, fever headaches, and swollen lymph nodes.
