On Tuesday, June 21, the Ministry of Health of Singapore confirmed that it had “found a single imported case of monkeypox in a 42-year-old British flight attendant who had already been in Singapore from June 15 to 17 and then flew again on June 19.
On June 20, a man tested positive for monkeypox. The testing was not accidental: it turned out that he first got sick with something like the flu, and then he developed a skin rash — perhaps the most common symptom of smallpox.
The crew member is now reportedly in “stable condition” and has been transferred to isolation at the Singapore National Center for Infectious Diseases.
Contact tracers have already identified 13 close contacts of the patient, all of whom have been placed on 21 day quarantine. Among them — other members of the British Airways cabin crew.
The other two passengers sitting next to each other are considered low-risk contacts and will dispense with quarantine, limiting themselves to regular telephone checks. monkey» it is usually transmitted only through close and prolonged physical contact. The incubation period for this disease lasts from 5 to 21 days.
As a result of most of the crew being placed under mandatory quarantine, British Airways had to postpone its flagship flight Singapore — London scheduled for Tuesday evening. Now we need to wait for the arrival of a new crew — he will be “captured” next British plane.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), monkeypox mostly occurs in Central and West Africa, but recently Europe has become the epicenter of the outbreak, affecting mainly people who practice non-traditional relationships.
On Tuesday, the British Health Protection Agency said groups most at risk, including frontline health workers and sexual minorities, are being advised to get the Imvanex smallpox vaccine, which is very effective against the monkeypox virus.
p>
Doctors say that most cases of monkeypox are mild, but some people can have a severe course of the disease. They urge citizens to be alert to any new spots and sores on any part of the body, especially if close contact has recently taken place with a new partner.