South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) on Tuesday confirmed that a second case of monkeypox has been reported in the country, reported The Eyewitness News. The second monkeypox patient is a 32-year-old male residing in the Western Cape Province.
The authorities said he doesn’t have any recent travel history, suggesting a probability of local transmission. They said contact tracing has already started in order to identify any other related cases of monkeypox in the country. Isolation of confirmed cases allows for the prevention of transmission. Currently, it is not known if the first and second cases are linked.
On Tuesday, the Department of Health issued a statement in which South Africa’s Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla urged the public to observe good hygiene practices and other preventative measures to stop possible spread of the disease.
“Monkeypox is less contagious than smallpox and causes less severe illness, but the situation is slowly evolving with cases being recorded,” said Phaahla.
South Africa confirmed its first monkeypox case on June 23. The infected person was a 30-year-old man from Gauteng, also with no travel history.
The health department said the source of the monkeypox cases in South Africa as well as the links between cases remain under investigation.
According to the World Health Organization’s latest update, more than 3,400 confirmed monkeypox cases and one death have been reported across the world as of last Wednesday, with a majority of them from Europe.
Last week, the WHO ruled that Monkeypox is not yet a global health emergency, although the health body’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was deeply concerned about the outbreak.
While the WHO has not recommended any travel restrictions, South Africa’s health minister said it is important for travellers to endemic countries to alert health officials on the situation to enable early case detection and management.
