Japan confirms first monkeypox case as it steps up preparation for outbreak

Japan confirmed its first case of monkeypox Monday, with the news coming on the same day that the nation stepped up preparations for an outbreak following the World Health Organization’s declaration over the weekend that the viral disease constitutes a global public health emergency.

The patient is a Tokyo resident in his 30s. In late June, he traveled to Europe, where he had contact with someone who was later diagnosed with monkeypox, before returning to Japan in mid-July, a health ministry official said.

The man first developed a sense of fatigue on July 15. He visited a doctor in Tokyo on Monday, complaining of a fever, rash and headache in addition to the sense of fatigue, the official said. The patient is currently being treated at a hospital in Tokyo and is in a stable condition.

Earlier in the day, the government held the nation’s first emergency meeting on the disease and decided to step up surveillance and preventive measures.

Symptoms of monkeypox include an acute rash, fever, headache, swollen lymph nodes and muscle aches.

Health ministry officials said Monday that patients can be tested either at the National Institute of Infections Diseases or local public health institutes set up in all of 47 prefectures.

While there are currently no domestically approved drugs and vaccines specifically for monkeypox, three clinical studies have recently been launched to make treatment and preventive measures available.

One of the studies, being carried out at the Tokyo-based National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM), will allow family members or partners of monkeypox patients to receive a smallpox vaccine. The shot is believed to be effective in preventing monkeypox.

Through another clinical study, the government has already given the smallpox vaccine to medical workers at the NCGM and is monitoring its effects, a ministry official said.

The third study is related to tecovirimat, a monkeypox drug that has been approved overseas but not yet in Japan. The health ministry has imported the medicine for research so it can be used as part of a clinical study for patients in Japan. The NCGM is leading the study, which has been joined by hospitals in Osaka, Aichi and Okinawa prefectures, with patients to be treated at hospitals closest to them.

Separately, a health ministry panel will be convened later this week to discuss whether to formally approve the use of a smallpox vaccine, for which there is a government stockpile, for the prevention of monkeypox.

The government has not disclosed how much smallpox vaccine it has. Those doses have been kept so they can be used in the event of a biological terrorist attack.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry on Monday issued a Level 1 infectious diseases travel warning for all countries. That level, the lowest of four alerts issued by the ministry, urges travelers to exercise caution.

Long endemic in African countries, monkeypox has spread mostly in Europe and North America since May among people with no recent history of travel to an endemic area. Over 16,000 cases from 75 countries and territories have been reported to the WHO.

At the moment, the outbreak is concentrated among men who have sex with men, especially those with multiple sexual partners, according to the WHO. The incubation period of monkeypox is usually between six and 13 days, but it can range from five to 21 days.

The WHO on Saturday declared the recent surge in monkeypox to be a public health emergency of international concern, its highest alert, after experts reviewed the situation at an emergency committee meeting two days earlier.

The global health body has previously issued such a declaration six times. The previous one was for COVID-19 in 2020, which came after a third meeting of the emergency committee on the coronavirus.

Source: The Japan Times

--Agencies