Marcos orders continuous surveillance on Mpox

MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos has directed agencies to sustain monitoring of areas and people most vulnerable to mpox, which has been declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global public health emergency.

Marcos met with officials of the Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday to discuss the viral disease, which can be transmitted through close or intimate contact with an infected person or through contaminated objects.

“Continue surveillance, especially on areas and people most vulnerable to the disease,” Marcos said.

The DOH yesterday clarified that there is no mpox epidemic similar to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Only 10 mpox cases were recorded for the past year. Mpox is curable and not highly infectious, the DOH said.

Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa told Marcos that all patients have recovered from the non-airborne disease.

A state of public health emergency has not been declared due to the low number of mpox cases and fatality rate, Herbosa said.

He said the first mpox case reported in the Philippines this year is a mild variant and not the deadly strain sparking global alarm.

“It’s the old variant,” he said, referring to the mild Clade 2 variant. “It’s not as alarming as the Clade 1b.”

The highly transmissible Clade 1b strain of the virus has killed hundreds of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and has also been detected in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Sweden. This prompted the WHO to declare mpox a public health emergency of international concern.

Mpox has the potential to spread further across countries in Africa and possibly outside the continent, according to experts from the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee.

Common mpox symptoms include skin rashes or mucosal lesions, which can last for two to four weeks, the DOH said.

Rashes are accompanied by fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy and swollen lymph nodes, the DOH noted.

On Monday, the DOH detected the first mpox case this year – a 33-year-old Filipino male with no travel history outside the country, but with close, intimate contact three weeks before symptom onset.

“For us doctors, that means the virus is circulating in the community,” Herbosa said.

No symptoms among close contacts

Meanwhile, none of those identified as close contacts of the first mpox case in the Philippines this year exhibited symptoms of the infectious disease, the Quezon City government said yesterday.

At least 41 people have been identified as close contacts and 28 were considered under “Type 1,” or people who have had direct contact with the patient’s skin lesions, Mayor Joy Belmonte said at a press briefing.

Although not a Quezon City resident, Belmonte said the patient went to the city to visit a spa on Aug. 11 and a dermatology clinic four days later, when his symptoms were suspected to be caused by mpox.

The massage therapist and 27 clients present at the time were classified as Type 1 contacts.

Rolando Cruz, head of the Quezon City Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit, said the clients were classified as Type 1 contacts since the patient had a “sexual encounter” with at least one of them.

The dermatology clinic’s staff were not tagged as close contacts as the doctor who examined the patient wore protective equipment.

Type 1 contacts have to undergo home quarantine until Sept. 1, while others were advised to self-monitor, Cruz said.

None of the close contacts have so far exhibited symptoms, he noted.

The local government has ordered the spa’s closure as it did not have a business permit.

Belmonte said only three staff members of the spa and seven of the 27 clients are residents of Quezon City. The rest, including the massage therapist, live in other cities in Metro Manila.

“(The three spa employees) will be given financial assistance under our Alagang QC Program, which is a program for workers who lost their jobs,” Belmonte said.

“Moving forward, what the city will do is incorporate the yellow card (health certificate) in the QC ID. That will be automated to ensure that they undergo regular health screenings that are required for being employed in an establishment like that,” she added. – Mayen Jaymalin, Janvic Mateo