By: Kimberly Ramkhalawan
July 29, 2022
“The Caribbean needs to guard against communicable diseases like Monkeypox being established in the Caribbean”, the statement put out by the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA’s), Executive Director, Dr Joy St.John as it held its media briefing on the latest disease to be declared as a ‘public health emergency of international concern’ (PHEIC) by the World Health Organisation, WHO.
The press briefing which was held in an attempt to provide guidance into how the media should cover this sensitive matter sought to share with reporters their role in ensuring the disease is not stigmatized with misinformation that might be amuck on social media.
Dr St.John along with her team at CARPHA sought to field questions from the media regarding Monkeypox, a virus that has seen a resurgence in certain parts of the world.
The virus comes while CARPHA says the region is still grappling with COVID, and diseases such as dengue, which already exist as an endemic within the Caribbean. But her concerns regarding monkeypox, while similar to the spread of misinformation on the COVID virus, is people not being aware of monkeypox and its symptoms, but more so, the risk of many hiding as they cope with the disease without proper help which could lead to the further spread of the disease.
According to CARPHA, so far it has received samples for testing of the virus in the region, dating back to June 23. As to how it is contracted, Dr St.John says while not airborne like COVID, Monkey pox requires close and prolonged contact, and exchange of bodily fluids. In phrasing carefully, she made sure to say the kind of activity of a child, and the child of a teenager can be monitored where they are advised on the spread of the disease. She noted that the way this virus had exhibited itself around the world and mainly in Europe, it is expected that it was not going to be easily spread unless it is an activity which promotes it.
As to whether there are long term effects of Monkeypox, Dr St.John says while she reserves her comments on whether there will be lasting effects from this particular outbreak, usually what happens with this virus was that symptoms have often been milder and carried a low death rate. However, this most recent outbreak, it appeared to be showing some different strains, something she says might be due to the way it is being transmitted. Dr St.John referred to the continent of Africa where the disease has been declared an endemic and the virus is often contracted as a mild case, and most patients get it and move on. Something Dr St.John remains “hopefully true to the current strain being transmitted around the world”.
Speaking to the discrimination of the gay community arising out of the possible spread of the virus, “of course to respect any intervention or working toward reducing the spread of any disease, you need to look at where transmission is, who are the vulnerable populations what are their risks also, but part of the messaging is what was learnt from COVID 19.” In this case, she says partnering with the vulnerable communities was one way in which it intended to work with them in the proper phrasing of the message, as well as utilizing any events communities will be hosting in bringing awareness to the disease and its transmission.
She added that advice will be rendered on how to make informed decisions on what we do, how things are transmitted, how to avoid it, all therefore reducing the risk in becoming infected.
Dr St.John said the media had a critical role in the way it covered this topic, as if a particular tone is set, if there is a tone of science, facts, understanding of the community rather than pillorying the community, the discrimination can be avoided. In the Caribbean, she says many people were initially discriminated against for COVID 19, we need to have that kind of understanding in the way we approach this monkeypox outbreak as well. “Not everyone who gets monkeypox is from a community, sometimes it is children, because of the circumstances in their particular neighbourhood or village. But we don’t need to have a negative outlook on this. We need to treat this as a communicable disease that has to be dealt with”, Dr St.John.
Nevertheless, she says she is confident Caribbean people will be pragmatic and careful unless they are in a particular festival period where it will be spread.
Dr St.John said there was a coordinating group lead by Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, CDEMA that met once a month to deal with matters surrounding COVID, the group which comprises of CARPHA, PAHO, CDEMA, CARICOM Secretariat, OECS, has now recently started to have a health security perspective on this latest virus. She said in its most recent meeting, discussions focused on the price of the vaccine, and how in the Caribbean they did not envision a large number of cases developing while they do not expect any real establishment of monkey pox either in one country or another. She admits however, that it does anticipate some level of imported cases, as a result health services say have been put on alert, it spread of the virus if anything would be attributed to people in hiding.
She says it will be unlikely it will capture cases and contain the epidemic.
As for whether it has been asked to procure vaccines for the virus on behalf of the Caribbean, the CARPHA executive said discussions were around having some procured vaccines on standby. This will however require approaching member states on taking the decision, as the current vaccines are not cheap and described the prices as quite disturbing. She added it was not something in particular could afford and therefore needed CARICOM to get the regional perspective.
Prices have been put at approximately US$100 per vaccine, however, people who have had the small pox vaccine, one vaccine of the monkeypox inoculation would suffice, while those who never received a small pox vaccine would require two of these costly shots.
Despite the thoughts of acquiring vaccines against this virus, CARPHA’s Technical Officer, Health Information and Data Analysis, Angela Hinds said vaccines proved to be 85 percent effective in preventing the disease, however, reinfection was possible.