Virologist: Monkeypox is not as dangerous as Covid

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Dr Michael Owusu, a virologist at the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research (KCCR), claims that monkeypox is not as lethal as the coronavirus.

He believes it is unlikely to result in fatalities, as was the case with Covid.

His remarks came after five instances of monkey pox were reported in Ghana’s Eastern, Western, and Greater Accra regions.

At a news conference on Wednesday, June 8, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, verified this.

Speaking on this development on the mid day news on TV3 Wednesday June 8, Dr Michael Owusu said “…What it means is that no country can escape it at the moment, we just have to find strategies to deal with it

such that we can contain it and possibly, break the chain of transmission.”

Asked how deadly monkey pox is, he said “well, the mortality rate of monkey pox is not that high as compared to Covid which we were doing close to 10 per cent mortality rate.

“Monkey pox causes discomfort, body weakness, sometimes fever but it is unlikely to cause death. Even if there will be cases of death, you need to have large numbers of it in people who are mostly already weak, they are those who are likely to die.”

He further gave guidelines on how to tackle the outbreak.

Fortunately, he said, the monkey pox is caused by virus just as Covid, hence “application of hand sanitizer is very crucial, even the use of mask and avoiding body contact as much as you can.”