This is the country’s 10th case since 2022.
On Monday, August 19, the Department of Health (DOH) shared that the Philippines has recorded its 10th case of mpox (formerly known as monkeypox), which is also its first since December 2023.
According to the DOH, the patient is “a 33-year-old Filipino national with no travel history outside the Philippines but with close, intimate contact three weeks before symptom onset.”
The health department adds that the case was first reported to them on Sunday, August 18, after laboratory tests confirmed that the patient has contracted mpox.
Symptoms of the individual include fever and rashes on his face, nape, back, trunk, groin, palms, and soles, which began manifesting on him a week ago, as per the DOH.
He was then brought to a government hospital, where he was tested through an real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), with the results indicating that he is positive for mpox.
However, the health department has not yet been able to identify which strain the case #10 tested positive for.
The Philippines first recorded its case of what was then-known as monkeypox in July 2022, and all of the patients that previously tested for the disease have recovered after being isolated and treated.
SYMPTOMS TO LOOK OUT FOR
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the common symptoms of mpox are skin rash or mucosal lesions which can last for 2-4 weeks.
These can also be accompanied by fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy, and swollen lymph nodes.
Transmission modes of mpox between humans can happen through physical contact with an infected person, but it can also be contracted by having contact with materials or infected animals too.
GLOBAL HEALTH EMERGENCY
On Thursday, August 15 (Manila time), the World Health Organization’s director-general Dr. Tedros Ghebreysus said that the uptick in cases of Mpox (monkeypox) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other African countries “constitutes a public health of international concern (PHEIC).”
“The emergence of a new clade of mpox, its rapid spread in eastern DRC, and the reporting of cases in several neighbouring countries are very worrying,” Tedros described the situation.
“On top of outbreaks of other mpox clades in DRC and other countries in Africa, it’s clear that a coordinated international response is needed to stop these outbreaks and save lives,” the WHO director-general added.
Mpox was first declared as a PHEIC by the WHO in 2022, before terminating the classification in May 2023 after a sustainable decline in cases.