Monkeypox isolation ward opened at King George Hospital in Visakhapatnam

It is the second such facility opened in Andhra Pradesh after the one in Vijayawada; another 4-bed ward is being readied at Infectious Diseases Hospital in Visakhapatnam

The district health authorities have opened a 20-bed monkeypox isolation ward at the King George Hospital in the wake of the worldwide spread of the virus.

This is the second such facility in Andhra Pradesh after the one set up in Vijayawada with a capacity of six beds recently.

Apart from this, another 4-bed ward is being prepared at the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH) near the Government Hospital for Chest and Communicable Diseases at Peda Waltair in the city.

KGH Superintendent K. Sivanand said that the monkeypox ward would handle cases from the North Coastal Andhra Pradesh.

“As the KGH is always crowded with patients, we want to make the ward at the IDH as the special ward for mpox. We are waiting for the RT-PCR kits developed by the APMedTech Zone. So far, we have no information regarding the kits. Usually, we send the swabs to the virology labs in Pune. If the RT-PCR kit is available, it will be easy for us to indentify the cases,” said Dr. Sivanand.

Four-member core team

He said that a four-member core team had been formed to run the monkeypox isolation ward at the KGH. The members are Dr. D. Radhakrishnan (HoD, General Medicine), Dr. P. Ratna Kumari (HoD, Microbiology), Dr. T. Shanti (HoD, Dermatology) and Dr. A. Krishnaveni (HoD, Community Medicine).

The team members have been instructed to gather information about the patients’ condition on hourly basis, which would be submitted to the higher authorities. They will mark the inquiry request form with red ink for urgent investigations.

Resident Medical Officer D. Bhaskara Rao has been made in-charge of the monkeypox isolation ward at the KGH. He will coordinate with the Government Hospital for Chest and Communicable Diseases.

“We have not received any suspected cases at the KGH so far,“ Dr. T. Shanti, one of the core team members, said.

Following the World Health Organisation (WHO) protocols and directives of the Union Health Ministry, the State government has started opening monkeypox wards in key cities.

“We are focussing on the cities where international flights are operated. Unlike COVID-19, monkeypox is not airborne. It spreads through close human contact. Proper isolation of the suspected patients will check the spread of the infection. A suspected patient will be considered infected only after the virology tests at the laboratories in Pune confirm the presence of the virus in the sample,” a health official at the Secretariat in Amaravati told The Hindu.