TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Indonesia raises vigilance on mpox amid latest global emergency
The Health Ministry has prepared more than 4,000 doses of mpox vaccines and readied dozens of laboratories across the country to test the viral disease, amid the latest global emergency status following the surge of cases in Africa and other regions.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Passengers walk past the mpox awareness banner at Anna International Airport terminal in Chennai, India, on Aug. 21, 2024. (AFP/R. Satish Babu)
T
he Health Ministry has scaled up efforts to mitigate the mpox spread in the country through disease surveillance, vaccination and testing, following a health emergency declaration due to the recent surge of cases and spread of the viral disease, including in several of Indonesia’s neighboring countries.
The World Health Organization declared on Aug. 14 a global public health emergency on mpox amid an uptick of cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and its neighbors.
The emergency status was the second alert for mpox from the United Nations health body, since the previous one that lasted for a year from July 2022 to May of last year.
Since the case surge in DRC, several other countries have reported several mpox suspects or confirmed cases, such as at least one each in the Philippines and Thailand.
In Indonesia, at least 88 mpox cases had been detected as of Saturday, since health authorities detected the first case in 2022.
But the Health Ministry claimed that it had not detected any new cases recently, including ones caused by the new variant.
According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the mpox virus has two types: the more virulent and deadlier Clade I and less severe Clade II.
