Isolation ward for Monkeypox patients set up in Fever Hospital

HYDERABAD: The Superintendent of Nallakunta Fever Hospital and Monkeypox Nodal Officer Dr. K Shankar on Tuesday said that the Telangana Government made necessary arrangements to deal effectively with monkey pox in the wake of reports of the cases of the infection being reported in the country.

For this, a monkeypox isolation ward with 36 beds was set up in Nallakunta Fever Hospital. The monkeypox ward (7th ward) was inspected in Fever Hospital by the doctors.

Later, he said that if any of those coming from abroad show symptoms of monkeypox, they would be brought directly from the airport to the Nallakunta Fever Hospital and according the instructions of the doctors, five types of samples such as blood, urine, skin clearance (water) and throat swab would be collected from the suspected patients and sent to Gandhi Hospital for testing. "If there are any doubts in the results, samples will be collected again and sent to National Institute of Virology in Pune for diagnostic tests. Special treatments will be provided to those diagnosed in these tests," he said.

Dr Shankar said that usually this disease was not spread through the air. Care should be taken essentially. When anybody went near an infected person without wearing PPE kits, the patient coughed and sneezed and infects others, chances of contracting the disease couldn't be ruled out. However, Dr. Shankar said that this virus would spread rapidly from one person to another and made clear that monkeypox was not new, and it was already prevalent in many countries. A person infected with this disease would show symptoms such as rashes (sores) on the legs, hands, face, and body, swelling in the throat, etc.

Health Minister T Harish Rao on Monday itself gave directions to all the hospitals and Covid treatment centres to brace themselves up for handling monkey pox cases, in case there were any reported.

Considering the pace at which the disease would spread, the State Government was making all arrangements to handle the situation. Doctors and paramedics handling Covid cases were being trained to gear up for the challenge.