Isolation because of monkeypox makes sense?
Physician clarifies and focuses on a symptom
Created: 05/25/2022, 12:28 p.m
By: Marcus Giebel
Monkeypox spread in Germany.
Karl Lauterbach wants to counteract this with isolation for at least 21 days.
A doctor gives his assessment.
Munich – Germany is again asking the question: what is appropriate and expedient in view of the impending risk of infection?
Because of the corona pandemic, politicians have already resorted to various tools to contain and slow down the spread of the virus as much as possible.
There were contact and sometimes exit restrictions, strict distance rules, mask requirements, isolation for infected people and quarantine for contact persons.
Now, in the spring of 2022, the challenge is called monkeypox.
And this time, isolation is the main tool to help prevent a real wave of the viruses known from parts of Africa.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach explained that he would react “hard and early”, together with the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) he recommends isolation for at least 21 days, the same time frame applies to direct contacts.
Isolation because of monkeypox: doctors think it makes sense because of pustules
The incubation period - i.e. the time between infection and the outbreak of the disease - is also given as up to 21 days, during which the infected person is not yet contagious, as Dr.
Christoph Specht
emphasized on
RTL .
The general practitioner and medical journalist known from TV thinks isolation makes sense, especially because of a symptom.
Because in addition to fever and headache or back pain, blisters also appear on the skin.
Specht says of the blisters or pustules caused by monkeypox: “The virus is in there.
As long as the patient has this smallpox, this rash and these pustules keep popping up, you can be sure that he is infectious.” The following applies: “If the smallpox breaks open, bursts open or the person concerned scratches, fluid comes out that is highly contagious ."
Black and white: The monkeypox virus was detected in one patient - this was followed by isolation.
© IMAGO / Christian Ohde
Isolation because of pustules after monkeypox infection: According to the RKI, the symptom disappears even without treatment
It is very likely that the infected person is no longer contagious until the pustules have crusted over and healed.
In line with this, the length of isolation should depend on the onset of symptoms.
According to the RKI, these externally visible symptoms “usually last between two and four weeks and disappear on their own without treatment”.
Transmission from person to person is possible in close contact, and the virus can also be passed on through droplets.
The RKI therefore recommends that those affected in a multi-person household “stay in one room as long as they have the rash, ideally with access to their own bathroom”.
Own bedding and separate household items should be used.
Because the monkeypox virus can even survive for months on surfaces or fabrics.
All of this shows that even if the experts assume that there will be no similar wave of infection as with the corona virus, caution is always required.
(mg)
