Sahar Mourad
Body

Subway Monkeypox case "really concerning"

A photo of a man who very clearly had Monkeypox and is standing in close proximity to others has gone viral. 

The image was shared to Twitter by a Spanish doctor Arturo Henriques who “cautiously” approached the man and questioned why he was not isolating if he had Monkeypox.

He said the man was only told to wear a mask by his doctor and nothing else to which Dr Henriques tried to explain that lesions on the body were most contagious. 

Dr Henriques then asked a nearby passenger if she was worried about catching Monkeypox which she laughed off saying she wasn’t gay and straight people don’t need to be concerned. 

This prompted a response from Paul Griffin, Director of Infectious Diseases at Mater Health Services, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Queensland.

Professor Griffin said it was “really concerning” to see people not taking the disease seriously and need to isolate if they have it. 

"It's really disappointing, isn't it? I mean, it's actually really concerning," he told Yahoo News Australia.

"But if people don't take that seriously and don't isolate themselves, well, that can certainly facilitate the spread and make something that we should be able to control much more challenging.

"While it's really important, we identify who is at greatest risk and we try and modify that risk by approaching those groups and giving them the right advice, we need to be really careful that we don't be discriminatory or stigmatising.”

Monkeypox spreads through close skin-to-skin physical contact with someone who has symptoms, such as when you are having sex, or by direct contact with contaminated objects, such as bedding, towels or clothes.

​​Many of the cases are in men who have sex with men and have been acquired overseas.

Some of the symptoms include: rashes, lesions or sores, particularly in areas that are hard to see such as the genitals, anus or anal area or on the face, arms and legs, ulcers, lesions or sores in the mouth, fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills and/or exhaustion.

Image: Twitter

Tags:
Monkeypox, disease, lesions, isolate, contagious