Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) has started testing of monkeypox shortly after the World Health Organization said that the disease has now become a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
Prof. Pontieno Kaleebu, the Uganda Virus Research Institute Executive Director said they have so far conducted four testes at their laboratory in Entebbe and all the tests were negative.
UVRI has so far tested thirty samples where the twenty-six were taken to South Africa because the country had not yet secured reagents.
The monkeypox has globally hit the peak rising by last week by 48% percent where 4,045 new cases were recorded compared to 2,740 cases in the previous week.
The WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared a PHEIC even though the committee of experts had convened to study the issue did not advise him to do so, having failed to reach a consensus.
Tedros said, the declaration allows them to take additional measures to try and curb the virus spread, the announcement means that countries should put in place measures to quickly curb transmission once the disease is detected.
Dr. Charles Olaro, the Director of Curative Services in the Ministry of Health says no serious measures have been considered so far apart from the usual disease surveillance, especially at the border points.
Olaro says some tests done by the Ministry of Health have found some people to have antibodies even as no active human case has been identified.
From May 2022, cases of monkeypox have been reported from countries where the disease is not endemic and continued to be reported in several endemic countries.
According to WHO, most of the reported cases so far have been identified through sexual health or another health service in primary or secondary healthcare facilities and have involved mainly, but not exclusively, men who have sex with men.
Europe was notified to have the majority of the reported monkeypox cases.
