Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has said the Delhi government is keeping an eye on the complete situation arising from monkeypox infection and has done all the preparations to fight back.

Speaking about the preparations being made by the Delhi government, Sisodia said, “Not many cases of Monkeypox have been reported in India, yet we are ready with all the preventive measures in place. The Delhi government is taking several important steps to prevent monkeypox infection from spreading across the capital.”

The Delhi Deputy Chief Minister said though monkeypox is a communicable disease, one needs to follow the precautions instead of being scared of it.

He further said, “Looking at the current situation, isolation rooms have been set up in three government and three private hospitals.”

Sisodia said, “To provide immediate treatment to the positive and suspected cases of monkeypox, the Delhi Government has made isolation rooms in three government hospitals and three private hospitals. 20 isolation rooms have been prepared in Loknayak Jaiprakash Hospital, 10 isolation rooms each in GTB hospital and Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital. Apart from this 10 isolation rooms each have been set up in Kailash Deepak Hospital, MD City Hospital and Batra Hospital Tughlakabad. The number of rooms will be increased in the future as per the requirement. All the arrangements have been made as per the global standards to fight the infectious monkeypox virus.” 

As on July 23, more than 16,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 75 countries across the world, in view of which the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared monkeypox as a “public health emergency”. Seven cases of the virus have been reported in India so far, out of which two cases are from Delhi, both the patients are undergoing treatment at Loknayak Jaiprakash Hospital.

According to the guidelines of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MFHoW), if a person has the history of travelling to monkeypox affected countries in past 21 days, has symptoms like swollen lymph nodes, fever, headache, bodyache, rashes, weakness, respiratory symptoms etc, then he/she might be a suspected case of the virus. The precautions to be followed for avoiding the infection of monkeypox includes exposure to the infected person; the disease can be spread through direct physical contact with skin or skin wounds, or by contact with materials used by the infected person, such as clothing, bedding or utensils.