Tackling Monkeypox

Sharpen disease surveillance, give health workers smallpox vax, manufacture FDA-cleared shots locally

The World Health Organisation declaring monkeypox a global-health emergency is a signal to India to really scale up its response. Nearly 18,000 cases have been detected worldwide, alongside four cases in India. But having surmounted the worst of the Covid pandemic and learned valuable and occasionally painful and tragic lessons, India is in a better position to implement prevention and treatment strategies for monkeypox. It is this advantage that mustn’t be squandered as monkeypox is less transmissible, and the infectious stage starts only after symptoms appear.