South Africa: Contact Tracing Under Way for First Monkeypox Case Confirmed in SA

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23 June 2022
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
analysis By Tamsin Metelerkamp

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases confirmed that contact tracing is being carried out for the first case of monkeypox identified in South Africa. The disease is considered mild and tends to move slowly within a population. Large-scale vaccination is not currently viewed as necessary.

Contact tracing based on the first case of monkeypox to be identified in South Africa is currently under way. The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) was notified of a potential case through its hotline on Monday, 20 June, said Nevashan Govender, the Emergency Operations Centre manager at the NICD.

On Wednesday, laboratory testing confirmed the case was monkeypox.

"Unfortunately, because there's no travel history for this particular case, it means that the disease was acquired locally. So ... the case-tracing process is under way," said Dr Jacqueline Weyer, a principal senior medical scientist at the NICD.

"The idea is to identify the contact that the individual had, within the period of time that would make sense for when we expect them to have contracted the disease."

Read in Daily Maverick: First case of monkeypox confirmed in South Africa

Govender and Weyer were speaking on Thursday at a press briefing held by the NICD. Weyer...

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