Smallpox vaccines are still considered effective in protecting recipients against monkeypox, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has said.
“The monkeypox (virus) is in the same genus as the smallpox (virus). (The efficacy of the) smallpox (vaccine) is different from the COVID-19 (vaccine), which declines in six months,” he pointed out after launching the SatuSehat Platform here Tuesday.
The smallpox vaccine can protect recipients and enable them to produce antibodies throughout their lifetime, he noted.
“Thus, for those who have been vaccinated against smallpox, they are quite protected (from monkeypox). In addition, there will be an antiviral therapy for the treatment (of patients),” he added.
He said that administering the smallpox vaccine is one of the efforts made by his ministry to curb the transmission of monkeypox, which has so far infected 16 thousand people in 75 countries and has the potential to become a global epidemic.
Other efforts have included the enforcement of the health protocols, the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, as well as the procurement of adequate medicines for treatment.
“The World Health Organization (WHO) (has also) advised the same (measures),” the minister noted.
The Health Ministry has provided 500 units of monkeypox PCR test kits for surveillance purposes at various entry points across Indonesia and is planning to import additional test kids, which will be disbursed to all provinces in July 2022.
Currently, the monkeypox vaccine is not available in Indonesia, Sadikin informed.
Hence, his ministry is striving to provide the drugs required to treat monkeypox patients.
He appealed to the public to not worry too much regarding the risk of monkeypox transmission in Indonesia since the disease is quite easy for health workers to diagnose directly—even with unaided eyes — through symptoms on the skin of infected persons.
“Thus, you do not have to worry; this (the monkeypox) will only spread after the symptoms appear —quite different to COVID-19, which can be transmitted although (the patients are) asymptomatic,” he emphasized.
The transmission of the disease requires physical contact with the bodily fluids of infected patients, he added.
As of Tuesday (July 26, 2022), the ministry has recorded no monkeypox cases in Indonesia.
Source: Antara News