Monkey pox: Ministry of Health introduces new responsibilities

In Poland, no cases of monkey pox have been reported so far, which has already reached 24 countries, including Poland's immediate neighbors - Germany and the Czech Republic. - The source of the current outbreaks in Europe is the West African line virus. Due to the fact that the disease has not occurred in Poland so far, it is necessary to include monkey pox and MPXV infection in the regulations on preventing and combating infections and infectious diseases in humans - reads the announcement of the Ministry of Health.

The amended provisions also concern the obligation to report cases of suspicion or diagnosis of monkey pox or death due to it to the locally competent state sanitary inspector. When a suspected or diagnosed case of monkey pox is detected or diagnosed, it will be possible to quarantine the contact or suspected person. People diagnosed with the disease will be hospitalized.

Experts commenting on the epidemic situation in the country stressed on Friday that at the moment, monkey pox does not seem to have a pandemic potential, certainly not on the scale of influenza or SARS-CoV-2 viruses. However, its spread outside Africa should raise vigilance, above all, as the World Health Organization also emphasizes, the governments of individual countries, which must do everything possible to prevent the spread of the pathogen by activating contact tracing procedures and catching all infected. It is easy because - unlike SARS-CoV-2 - those infected with the monkey pox virus have unequivocal symptoms.

Experts also emphasize that SARS-CoV-2 is still a greater threat to public health, especially in the perspective of several months, which we do not follow (not only in terms of contacts, but also, due to the practical lack of testing, of infections themselves) than monkey pox.