Attention being paid to preventing spread of mpox to Myanmar: junta minister

By Admin 20 Aug 2024

DMG Newsroom
20 August 2024, Sittwe

The junta-controlled Ministry of Health issued a statement on Monday saying that due to the rapid increase in the incidence of monkeypox (mpox) in neighbouring countries, special attention is being paid to preventing the spread of the infectious viral disease to Myanmar.

In a meeting to promote mpox prevention and control activities held in Naypyidaw on August 19, junta-appointed Union Health Minister Dr. Thet Khaing Win said Mpox monitoring activities at cross-country entry and exit points would be carried out with special attention, without affecting domestic and foreign travellers.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on August 14 declared that mpox, with origins traced to Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), had reached the status of a “public health emergency of international concern.”

Dr. Thet Khaing Win said that according to WHO criteria, the risk of mpox infection in Myanmar remains very low, and that from 2022 until today, 129 laboratory samples from patients were analysed with no confirmed case of mpox found.

Mpox is primarily transmitted through close contact with an infected patient.

Mpox was first discovered in the DRC in 1970, but had not been considered a global concern until recently, when public health officials raised the alarm due to a genetic mutation of the disease that is aiding its spread.