Newsmaker of the Week: Monkeypox patient flees, found and more

This week’s development as Newsmaker of the Week just ended is the announcement by the Ministry of Health and Wellness that monkeypox has been detected in Jamaica.

The story then took a short, bizarre and chaotic twist on Saturday, as the patient who was in Clarendon, absconded a health facility there. Some reports suggested that the patient was in isolation at the May Pen Hospital in Clarendon.

The man was subsequently found by the police and health officials at a house belonging to a close relative of his, and was taken back into isolation.

The close relative of the patient is now in quarantine.

Details on the patient’s escape from the Health and Wellness Ministry were that after midday on Saturday, the patient, who presented to the public health system on July 5, having arrived in Jamaica some five days earlier from the United Kingdom, left through a bathroom window of the facility and had a car waiting.

There were reports, too, that the man had told other hospitalised persons of his plan to leave the health facility, as he reportedly indicated that he had not spent a large sum of money to come Jamaica to “not enjoy himself”.

The police launched a search for the suspect, and health officials appealed to persons not to harm the individual if he was located.

The news of the then escaped patient with monkeypox generated chaos and uproar across social media, with several persons calling for the photograph of the man to be released, and for Clarendon to be placed under a form of lockdown to curtail any potential spread of the virus.

“Just publish his name and face. He’ll be found sooner that way,” @coolieboyrhaj tweeted.

“Where was (were) the security guards at the time? This is clearly a sign of negligence by hospital,” commented Shanice J Bell on Facebook.

Rick Foster commented that, “Clarendon needs an SOE now, now to locate the man. What kind of carelessness this? How him make call and gone through window?”

Reacting to the patient’s subsequent readmission to isolation, Christopher Shakes wrote: “They need to charge him and set an example to others who would like to endanger others.”

Donarene Morris-Henry questioned: “How many has he infected now? Give us grace Lord.”

Before the weekend chaos, the country was continuing to return to normal after two years of curfew measures and mandated mask-wearing, due to COVID-19.

Then came the news on Wednesday that another virus of international interest – monkeypox – had found its way to Jamaica.

One of the main symptoms of the disease is skin rash.

Some Jamaicans have already expressed that they are not concerned about the virus, citing information from health officials that the disease is not as severe as COVID-19, and has a low fatality rate globally.

The Government, through remarks by Health and Wellness Minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, has already signalled that it will be business as usual relative to the management of monkeypox.

Simply put, there will be no more lockdowns as was the case with the management of COVID-19, Tufton disclosed at Wednesday’s emergency press conference to announce the arrival of the virus on Jamaican shores via the Clarendon man who recently travelled from the United Kingdom.

Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease that is spread primarily through animals. While person-to-person spread is uncommon, it may occur through direct contact with an infected individual.Infection typically results in a number of symptoms, including fever, back pain and muscle pain, and the formation of lesions and skin rashes.

More than 6,000 cases of monkeypox have now been reported from 58 countries in the current outbreak, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday, July 6.

A majority of the cases, approximately 80 per cent, are from Europe, the health agency said in an update also on Wednesday, the same day that Jamaica announced its first case.

The agency said, too, that it will reconvene a meeting of the committee that will advise on declaring the outbreak a global health emergency, the WHO’s highest level of alert, in the week beginning July 18 or sooner, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference from Geneva.

At its previous meeting on June 27, the committee decided that the outbreak, which has seen cases rising both in the African countries where it usually spreads, and globally, was not yet a health emergency.

“I continue to be concerned by the scale and spread of the virus across the world,” Ghebreyesus was quoted as saying by the Associate Press (AP).

He noted that a lack of testing meant that there were likely many more cases going unreported, adding that around 80 per cent of cases are in Europe.

In breaking the news of monkeypox locally, Tufton implored Jamaicans to remain calm, as health authorities are capable of treating and tracking the virus, due to its relatively mild nature.

“I am confident that given the nature of the virus, (and) given the nature of the virus globally, to date, discovering…