The Nigerian national, confirmed positive for Monkeypox by Thai health authorities, has been sent to the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital in Phnom Penh, after fleeing Thailand for Cambodia, pointed out a press release of the Ministry of Health made public this evening.
The man, named Osmond Chihazirim, 27, was found by Cambodian competent authorities on July 23, at 17:30, at a guesthouse located on Street 430 in Sangkat Tuol Tompoung II, Khan Chamkar Mon, Phnom Penh, the source said.
The ministry called on those who came in direct contact with the Nigerian man to be in quarantine and seek health checks or inform the nearby medical team or contact hotline 115.
The public are also appealed to continue implementing the preventive measures against Monkeypox and to have health checks if there are suspected symptoms, it added.
The Ministry of Health will keep the public informed through its Facebook page and website.
According to Thai News Agency – NNT – the Nigerian tourist was confirmed positive for Monkeypox in Phuket province last week when he was admitted to a private hospital with fever, coughing, sore throat, and a runny nose along with genital rashes and lesions that had spread to other parts of his body and face. The patient refused to cooperate with authorities and disappeared from his hotel on July 21.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) explained that Monkeypox is a viral zoonosis (a virus transmitted to humans from animals) with symptoms similar to those seen in the past in smallpox patients, although it is clinically less severe.
Human monkeypox was first identified in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a 9-month-old boy in a region where smallpox had been eliminated in 1968.
Monkeypox is a disease of global public health importance as it not only affects countries in west and central Africa, but the rest of the world. In 2003, the first monkeypox outbreak outside of Africa was in the United States of America and was linked to contact with infected pet prairie dogs. These pets had been housed with Gambian pouched rats and dormice that had been imported into the country from Ghana. This outbreak led to over 70 cases of monkeypox in the U.S. Monkeypox has also been reported in travelers from Nigeria to Israel in September 2018, to the United Kingdom in September 2018, December 2019, May 2021 and May 2022, to Singapore in May 2019, and to the United States of America in July and November 2021. In May 2022, multiple cases of monkeypox were identified in several non-endemic countries.
Source: Agency Kampuchea Press
