Ministry of Health creates emergency committee for monkeypox

The Ministry of Health announced this Thursday (28) the creation of a COE (Emergency Operation Center) aimed at controlling monkeypox. According to the folder, the country has 978 confirmed cases of the disease.

The committee should start operating this Friday (29) and will have the participation of representatives of Conass (National Council of Health Secretaries), Conasems (National Council of Municipal Health Secretaries), PAHO (Pan American Health Organization), Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) and the National Institute of Infectious Diseases Evandro Chagas, from Fiocruz.

The initiative will be coordinated by the ministry, which reaffirmed its search for ways to acquire the vaccine and work with states to monitor cases.

So far, infected patients have been recorded in São Paulo (744), Rio de Janeiro (117), Minas Gerais (44), Paraná (19), Goiás (13), Bahia (5), Ceará (4), Rio Grande do Sul (3), Rio Grande do Norte (2), Espírito Santo (2), Pernambuco (3), Tocantins (1), Mato Grosso (1), Acre (1), Santa Catarina (4) and the Federal District (15).

The ministry’s decision comes five days after the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the monkeypox outbreak as a public emergency of global concern. “We believe this is the moment of this announcement, considering that, day after day, more countries and people have been affected by the disease. We need coordination and solidarity to control this outbreak”, said at the time the director general of the organization, Tedros Adhanom.

The disease is caused by monkeypox, a virus of the orthopoxvirus genus. Another pathogen that is also of this genus is the one that causes smallpox, a disease eradicated in 1980.

Although they have their similarities, there are differences between the two diseases. One of them is lethality: smallpox killed about 30% of those infected. Monkeypox, on the other hand, has a mortality rate of between 3% and 6%, according to the WHO.

To contain the spread of the virus, experts indicate that it is necessary to isolate suspected and confirmed cases, as well as immunize people who have had close contact with someone infected. Higher risk groups, such as frontline healthcare workers, can also be immunized.

According to the WHO, the smallpox vaccine has an effectiveness rate of approximately 85% for the disease caused by monkeypox. However, it is not available to the general public. In 2019, another immunizer was developed and is effective in preventing monkeypox, but is produced on a small scale.