AA / Ankara
On Sunday, the Turkish Ministry of Health announced that no cases of monkeypox had been detected in the country.
The Ministry’s General Directorate of Health said that the monkeypox virus belongs to the “Orthopoxvirus” family and is considered an animal disease that originates from wild animals such as rodents that are sometimes transmitted to humans.
The Turkish health authorities indicated that the disease can be transmitted through the air, or through contact with skin lesions and body fluids, and through respiratory secretions and through contact with contaminated surfaces.
Turkish Health explained that it is a disease that heals on its own, and its symptoms usually disappear between 14 and 21 days.
She pointed out that the General Directorate of Public Health and Infectious Diseases in Early Warning of the Turkish Ministry of Health monitors developments related to the virus, and exchanges information with international contacts in other countries, with the World Health Organization and the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Recently, several Western countries recorded infections with monkeypox virus, including 23 cases in Spain, and 20 in Portugal, while individual cases were monitored in Britain, the United States and Canada, in addition to an infection in Israel.
Monkeypox is a rare human smallpox-like virus that was first discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1970s.
Monkeypox causes headache, fever, and a rash that begins on the face and spreads to the rest of the body.
* Translated from Arabic by Hind Abdul Samad
