On Monday, Bihar Health Minister Mangal Pandey held a high-level meeting with senior officials of his department. The minister directed the officials to make people aware of symptoms of the viral zoonotic disease as per the guidelines of the central government and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
According to an expert, the disease has symptoms similar to smallpox, although it has less clinical severity.
No monkeypox case has been detected in Bihar so far.
An official informed that health officers have been asked to step up surveillance, isolate symptomatic travellers from monkeypox-affected countries and send their samples to the National Institute of Virology, Pune. They have also been directed to follow the standard operating procedures while dealing with the infectious diseases, he added.
As many countries continue to report monkeypox cases, the Union Health Ministry has advised all states to direct hospitals to monitor symptomatic patients, who have travelled to the monkeypox-affected countries recently, and isolate them at designated healthcare facilities.
The WHO had on July 23 declared monkeypox a global public health emergency of international concern.
More than 16,000 cases of the disease have been reported from 75 countries till July 24 and there have been five deaths so far as a result of the outbreak.
Although, the WHO Technical Lead has said that the rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak can be stopped.
Speaking to reporters, Rosamund Lewis said, "We do at this moment still believe that this outbreak of monkeypox can be stopped with the right strategies in the right groups but time is going by and we all need to pull together to make that happen."
Monkeypox outbreak constitutes a global health emergency, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared on Saturday.
The WHO label - a "public health emergency of international concern" - is designed to trigger a coordinated international response and could unlock funding to collaborate on sharing vaccines and treatments.
