PM Modi monitoring Mpox status; meeting takes stock of preparedness
Narendra Modi has been continuously monitoring the Mpox (monkeypox) situation, the government said on Sunday.
PK Mishra, Principal Secretary to the PM, chaired a high-level meeting to review the status of preparedness for Mpox in the country and related public health measures. The meeting was briefed that as of now there is no reported case of Mpox in the country. As per the current assessment, the risk of a large outbreak with sustained transmission is «low».
The WHO has declared Mpox a health emergency of international concern.
The National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), the government's advisory group, will also meet soon to review preparedness for Mpox (monkeypox), people in the know told ET.
Dr Anurag Agrawal, head, Koita Center for digital health at Ashoka Dean, biosciences and health research, Trivedi School of Biosciences, Ashoka University, said the new warning seems significantly «more serious» in terms of worst-case scenarios.
He said the best containment steps India can take «are those that prevent the infection from reaching us».
«The capacity we built during the SARS-CoV2 pandemic-in diagnostics, vaccines, genomic surveillance -can be used as part of a global South-South cooperation. Serving others can sometimes be the best way of serving oneself,» he said.
According to Gautam Menon, Dean of Research and professor of physics and biology, head of Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability (3CS) at Ashoka University, it would be wise at this point for India to screen at
