India Confirms First Travel Related Mpox Case
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00:00Hello and welcome. You're watching MarketIQ and I'm your host Pallavi Nahata. Now, the government
00:04has confirmed its first case of travel-related monkeypox in a young male who tested positive
00:10for a strain from Western Africa. The health ministry has said that the patient is in stable
00:15condition and is without systemic illness or comorbidities, having already been isolated
00:22over the weekend in suspicion of carrying the virus. Now, I'm in conversation with
00:30Metropolis for more details on how this is going to be for India going ahead. I'm in conversation
00:39with Dr. Nilesh Shah. Sir, thank you so much for taking time out for us today. My pleasure. Thank
00:45you so much. So, you know, with mpox becoming a rising concern, could you help us understand
00:52what is the testing infrastructure in the country currently like for monkeypox? What are the kinds
00:59of tests that are available? So, there are two kinds of tests. One is a molecular test where you
01:06detect directly genome of the virus, much more reliable than anything else. And there is a
01:11serological test which reliability is yet not proved. So, it is a molecular test which is PCR
01:18test, what we used to call during COVID. PCR is a technology and same technology will get applied
01:25here to detect viral genome. And there are, as you know, in the country, there are almost two lakh
01:32labs. And during COVID time, almost three to four thousand labs geared up to run this test and maybe
01:40a little more on a small scale. But eventually, these labs had to shut down. Many of them had to
01:47shut down their PCR technique because the volumes were not there. But still, I would assume four,
01:52five hundred labs would be ready for doing PCR. This is going to be conventional PCR.
01:59They will be ready to do the test and that will be the process ahead or planned to support
02:06any screening test required for this. Okay. Alright. So, as a nation, we seem to be
02:12decently prepared to scale up testing as and when needed, depending on the trajectory going forward.
02:18But tell us how contagious is mpox? So far, we know it's down to just one case.
02:24But what is the baseline assumption that the medical industry is currently working with?
02:32So, it is contagious and there are three methods by which contamination can occur.
02:38One is direct contact with the patient. Second is contact with any of the belongings of the
02:45patient which is infected. And third is, suppose you go very close to the patient,
02:50there can be respiratory droplets which can impact and can have an infection. And that is why,
02:56during the collection, you have to wear PPE and take care that none of these things
03:01you are acquired with. And these patients are also fully isolated. Isolation is the first,
03:06primarily important part which you need to take care of. So, one has to be cautious,
03:12not get paranoid. Stay cautious, but not get paranoid about it. That is a very important
03:17message I would like to convey. And there would be probably a testing required under doctor's
03:24guidance. On your own, one should not have to do it, but under doctor's guidance, it is required.
03:29And whenever government feels appropriate to permit private labs to run the test,
03:35I think testing platform, at least at Metropolitan, we are quite ready.
03:39We have finished our validation. We have not tested all live samples yet, but
03:45prototype samples we have tested and the validations have passed.
03:50All right. So, in that case, what are the precautions that you would suggest our viewers
03:56could take given the current scenario? So, hand hygiene and self-hygiene is most
04:02important. Avoiding contact with such patients, in case somebody in the future,
04:09suppose somebody comes in your family, your friends or nearby people, avoiding contacts,
04:15hand hygiene, that one should take care of it. Beyond that, right now, there is nothing more to
04:20do. One should continue with the hygiene part. Nothing more one can do at this stage.
04:28All right. And what is the treatment currently that is available in the industry,
04:36in case somebody has contacted MPOX? So, these are self-limiting diseases. So,
04:43the disease gets cloned on its own. The doctors would only do two, three things. They would
04:49isolate the patient and ensure that there is no cross infection. And second, they would ensure
04:55that all supporting treatment to give a relief on a side effect. The support treatments are given
05:03to the patient so patient can feel a bit better. But otherwise, to cure the disease, it is a
05:08self-limiting disease. So, there is no treatment. And honestly, I think this is more of a clinician
05:13subject than a laboratory like me to comment more on it. But it is not something so fatal or
05:21anything. And the complications are also very, very rare. One can have some complications like,
05:28you know, you can have pneumonia and you can have infection on the eye. One can lose eye at times,
05:32but these are very, very rare and less condition to be worried about.
05:37All right. And would you be able to provide us any updates on the latest status in terms of the
05:43vaccines? And while we do know that those are under development and it might be some time away
05:49before we can have access to that, what is that picture looking like broadly?
05:55As of now, there is no news about vaccine. There is a dedicated vaccine which has been
06:00given. But the regular vaccine which we have been taking for smallpox and all, or pox vaccines,
06:06they have been proven to give a little bit of support for avoiding mpox. And now there is no
06:12more monkeypox. It is mpox, by the way. And so that gives support. But there are no vaccines
06:18otherwise which have been made specifically for this. Mr. Shah, thank you so much for taking time
06:24out for us. This was most informative for our viewers as well. Thank you so much.