The National Institute of Communicable Diseases has confirmed that contacts are being tracked for the first case of smallpox in the South African monkey identified. The disease is considered mild and tends to move slowly within a population. Currently, large-scale vaccination is not considered necessary.
Contact tracking is currently underway based on the first case of monkeypox identified in South Africa. The National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) received notification of a possible case through its hotline on Monday, June 20, said Nevashan Govender, the manager of the NICD Emergency Operations Center.
On Wednesday, laboratory tests confirmed the case was smallpox from the monkey.
“Unfortunately, as there is no travel history for this particular case, it means the disease was acquired locally. So … the case-finding process is underway,” said Dr. Jacqueline Weyer , senior medical scientist at the NICD.
“The idea is to identify the contact the individual had, in the time period that would make sense for when we expect them to have contracted the disease.”
Read in Daily Maverick: First confirmed case of smallpox in South Africa
Govender and Weyer spoke Thursday at a NICD press conference. Weyer …