Two more monkeypox cases have been found in Phuket, raising the country’s confirmed cases to 10. The patients are a Thai woman and a German man, according to the Department of Disease Control (DDC).
One was a 37-year-old Thai woman working as a service employee. She developed a fever, a sore throat and muscle pains on Sept 16 and bought medicines to treat her symptoms the following day.
The woman told health authorities she had been in close contact with a 54-year-old German man on Sept 17. She later developed a rash on her buttocks and blisters on other body parts.
She sought treatment at a hospital in Phuket and told doctors that she had not been in close contact with other people who had rashes or blisters, and had not travelled abroad during the 21 days before she fell ill. However, she was in close contact with the German.
The doctors suspected she might have monkeypox and sent samples for lab tests. On Monday, the lab results confirmed the monkeypox virus.
Investigators from the Nakhon Si Thammarat disease control office joined Phuket provincial health officials and local hospital staff to trace others who were at risk. They later found the German man.
Lab results showed he was also infected with monkeypox, said Dr Opas.
Both patients are now being treated at a public hospital in Phuket, said Kusak Kukiattikoon, chief of the provincial public health office.
All told, he said, officials tracked 10 people who had been in close contact with the 37-year-old woman. Eight of them including the German man were deemed at high risk.
Now, all of the high-risk and low-risk people are under the care of disease investigation officials who are closely monitoring their conditions, he added.