{"id":93572,"date":"2022-05-26T12:15:13","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T12:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/za\/2022\/05\/26\/monkeypox-vaccination-campaign-not-necessary-in-sa-says-nicd\/"},"modified":"2022-05-26T12:15:13","modified_gmt":"2022-05-26T12:15:13","slug":"monkeypox-vaccination-campaign-not-necessary-in-sa-says-nicd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/za\/2022\/05\/26\/monkeypox-vaccination-campaign-not-necessary-in-sa-says-nicd\/","title":{"rendered":"Monkeypox vaccination campaign not necessary in SA, says NICD"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Cape Town – Since mid-May this year, a multinational outbreak of monkeypox has been reported, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 240 cases have been recorded in 19 countries.<\/p>\n

Scientists from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said they don\u2019t expect cases to increase exponentially and that a mass vaccination campaign is not necessary at this point in time.<\/p>\n

Executive director of the NICD, Professor Adrian Puren, said during a media briefing that while no cases have been reported in South Africa, they are preparing for a possible importation of monkeypox.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that Johannesburg is a hub of international travel, so I think that is one of our risks that we have, and there will likely be importation.<\/p>\n

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\u201cGiven the number of cases, we do not expect them to explode. At this time, we don\u2019t need a mass vaccination campaign,\u201d said Puren.<\/p>\n

For the past week, South Africa has slowly been exiting what health experts have referred to as the \u201cunofficial\u201d fifth Covid-19 wave driven by the Omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5.<\/p>\n

Puren said their agenda is to prioritise vaccinations for diseases and infections currently circulating in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t foresee that there will be an establishment of this disease in South Africa. I don\u2019t foresee monkeypox becoming endemic in terms of the explosive nature that we\u2019ve seen of Covid-19. They are two very different viruses. We have to approach them differently,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dr Jacquiline Weyer from the Centre for Emerging Zoonotic and Parasitic Diseases said the best way for South Africa to deal with the monkeypox outbreak is to maintain the \u201cclassical containment approach\u201d.<\/p>\n

This includes identifying cases, monitoring and isolating any confirmed cases to interrupt the chain of transmission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith monkeypox, it’s not a virus that\u2019s highly transmissible. It’s not like Covid-19 at all, and we can get ahead of the outbreak by test tracing, monitoring and isolation of cases. I think we can do that, and we can do it with vaccines,\u201d said Weyer.<\/p>\n

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The @nicd_sa<\/a> invited the media to another technical zoom media briefing. The session involved Prof Cheryl Cohen giving a COVID-19 update, followed by Dr Jacqueline Weyer who shared insights on the multi-national outbreak of monkeypox. Watch here https:\/\/t.co\/nyiLIVBe69<\/p>\n

— NICD (@nicd_sa) May 25, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n