China calls for overseas arrivals to be monitored for signs of monkeypox
- China CDC urges all cities to keep watch, especially if someone has been to a country where cases were reported in the previous 21 days
- The virus has yet to be found in China, but more than 1,800 infections have been recorded in non-endemic countries since early May
Monkeypox has yet to be reported in China, but cases are rising in Europe and the United States, and more than 1,800 infections have been recorded in non-endemic countries since early May.
In new guidelines on the virus, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said all cities should keep watch for symptoms – particularly a rash – among inbound travellers, especially those who have been in a country where monkeypox cases were reported in the past 21 days. Other symptoms include fever and body aches.
Any suspected cases should be reported to disease prevention and control authorities and transferred to designated hospitals.
It comes after the General Administration of Customs last month said it would step up prevention and control efforts with other agencies in a bid to avoid a community outbreak of monkeypox.
Customs said it had asked all Chinese ports of entry to strengthen health monitoring – including temperature checks and testing – and quarantine efforts for inbound travellers, as well as management of laboratory biosecurity and quarantine of rodents.
The China CDC’s National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention has developed a test for monkeypox, its director Xu Wenbo told reporters last week.
He said its sensitivity and specifity had been verified in Sierra Leone – one of 11 countries in Africa where monkeypox has been endemic since the first human case was reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970.
“China can detect potentially imported cases of monkeypox in a timely manner, and we have established this capability,” Xu said.
The China CDC guidelines said that in non-endemic countries where cases had been found there was “human-to-human transmission and mainly clusters among men who have sex with men”.
People who had not been vaccinated against smallpox – which, like monkeypox, is an orthopoxvirus – were susceptible to the monkeypox virus, according to the guidelines.
What is monkeypox and should we be worried about it?
Monkeypox is mainly spread through close contact or droplets, as well as by coming into contact with contaminated materials such as clothing or bedding. It can also be transferred from mother to baby through the placenta.
The China CDC guidelines call for contact tracing once a case is confirmed. Any suspected or confirmed case must be taken to an infectious disease treatment facility and isolated in a negative pressure ward until the crusty scabs that form over lesions caused by the virus have fallen off – when the person is no longer considered contagious. Close contacts are to be isolated for observation for up to 21 days.
There are currently no antiviral drugs available to treat monkeypox.
The virus is endemic in parts of Central and West Africa, but cases elsewhere are rare. There was an outbreak of 47 cases in 2003 in the United States, traced back to rodents imported from Ghana. Britain reported a total of seven cases from 2018 to 2021, linked to travel from Nigeria.
It said the sudden and unexpected appearance of monkeypox simultaneously in several regions without direct immediate travel links to areas that have long experienced the virus suggested there may have been undetected transmission for several weeks or longer.
