HSE Setup Team to Deal with the Anticipated Arrival of Monkeypox to Ireland
Science/Medical/Technology
Monday 23rd, May 2022
The Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland are setting up an incident management team for the expected arrival of the Monkeypox virus in Ireland.
The interim director of the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), Dr. Derval Igoe said that cases are being seen in Europe which are arising without a link to Africa where cases are ordinarily occur.
Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, Dr Igoe said that people are also presenting without the classic symptoms.
"There are no links to previous cases. It's not necessarily the classical symptoms of monkey pox,"
"And so that's what has been looked at in real detail now and surveillance is underway in all countries in the world."
Dr Igoe said cases, which are detected using PCR tests, are spread through close skin-to-skin contact or through droplets when someone is symptomatic.
She went on to say it is important for anyone with symptoms to isolate so that their contacts to be identified, adding that anyone with concerns should contact their GP or sexual health clinic.
The disease is understood to be spread by people who are symptomatic and that it's generally mild.
Dr. Igoe said, "Within the current increase that we have seen, there have been no deaths and there have only been two hospitalisations worldwide due to an illness,".
"We do have a lot of a lot of different professional groups working on this," she said.
"We have our sexual health and infectious disease experts in the hospitals, also our national isolation unit, the virus reference lab, national immunisation office and the Department of Health.
"We are also working with Gay Heath Network to make sure the messages are delivered in a suitable way to the populations we know are seeing cases of this virus."
The interim director of the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), Dr. Derval Igoe said that cases are being seen in Europe which are arising without a link to Africa where cases are ordinarily occur.
Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, Dr Igoe said that people are also presenting without the classic symptoms.
"There are no links to previous cases. It's not necessarily the classical symptoms of monkey pox,"
"And so that's what has been looked at in real detail now and surveillance is underway in all countries in the world."
Dr Igoe said cases, which are detected using PCR tests, are spread through close skin-to-skin contact or through droplets when someone is symptomatic.
She went on to say it is important for anyone with symptoms to isolate so that their contacts to be identified, adding that anyone with concerns should contact their GP or sexual health clinic.
The disease is understood to be spread by people who are symptomatic and that it's generally mild.
Dr. Igoe said, "Within the current increase that we have seen, there have been no deaths and there have only been two hospitalisations worldwide due to an illness,".
"We do have a lot of a lot of different professional groups working on this," she said.
"We have our sexual health and infectious disease experts in the hospitals, also our national isolation unit, the virus reference lab, national immunisation office and the Department of Health.
"We are also working with Gay Heath Network to make sure the messages are delivered in a suitable way to the populations we know are seeing cases of this virus."
