When the World Holds Its Breath: India’s Quiet Vigil Against Monkeypox
The World Health Organization’s declaration arrived, as such pronouncements often do, with the cool gravity of a telegram from Geneva: Monkeypox is now a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. A bureaucratic phrase, yes—but one that, in the coded language of global health, signals the highest level of alarm.
In India, where the virus has yet to breach the borders, the government has moved into a familiar rhythm of caution. Surveillance has been tightened at airports and land crossings; hospitals have been told to ready isolation wards. The specter of another outbreak—after the years of COVID fatigue—hovers at the edge of national consciousness.
The Shadows of an Old Vaccine
India’s risk, for now, remains low. But vigilance comes laced with memory. The smallpox vaccine, once a rite of passage for a generation, offers partial protection against monkeypox. Yet it has been out of general use for decades—kept now in the medical equivalent of a museum drawer, accessible only in rare, high-risk cases.
“If exposure occurs,” doctors explained, “the rash often begins on the hands and legs, then moves to the face before spreading inward. It resembles chickenpox, though it is far more painful. The lesions dry and crust over in two to three weeks—a long, uncomfortable process.”
As with many viral infections, there is no specific food or supplement that offers defense. “The only certain way to avoid monkeypox is to avoid travel to regions where it’s circulating—mostly in parts of Africa,” doctors said. “For those who are infected, swallowing can become difficult. They may have to rely on soft or liquid diets.”
Hospitals on Alert
In the capital, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has moved swiftly to outline its response. The guidelines, clinical and unsparing, detail every step: identification, isolation, and notification. Fever, headache, muscle pain, backache, swollen lymph nodes, and chills—these are the early markers that doctors are told to watch for.
Designated hospitals—Safdarjung, Ram Manohar Lohia, and Lady Hardinge—stand ready to receive suspected cases. Safdarjung, in particular, has been assigned as the primary isolation and treatment center. Ambulances, equipped for infection control, have been kept on standby.
Healthcare staff have been instructed to wear full protective gear and maintain meticulous records of every encounter. Should a suspected case appear, the Integrated Disease Surveillance Program is to be notified immediately—a phone number circulated quietly among hospital corridors: 8745011784.
Anxious Preparedness
On social media, the Union Health Minister, J.P. Nadda, sought to project composure. “No cases of Mpox have been detected in India so far,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “The Government of India is taking proactive measures to prevent and control the potential spread of the disease.”
It was a statement calibrated for calm—a reminder that vigilance need not shade into fear. Yet beneath the official language lies a deeper, almost philosophical unease: how quickly the lexicon of emergencies has become familiar.
From swine flu to COVID, from Nipah to Mpox, each new declaration arrives like a ghost of the last. The rituals of preparedness—temperature checks, isolation wards, ministerial briefings—play out with weary precision. Still, in the laboratories and waiting rooms of Delhi, Mumbai, and beyond, a quieter truth persists: prevention is rarely dramatic, but it is the only kind of heroism that works.
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