The Permanent Secretary for Health Dr James Fong has confirmed that no cases of monkeypox have been reported in Fiji.

Dr Fong said the health ministry is working together with its stakeholders to put together some protocols that will focus on the prevention and control of the virus.

In an interview after launching the invention prevention and control guideline, he said most of the protection measures that apply to coronavirus apply to monkeypox.

“We are working with the World Health Organisation and a number of other agencies that are helping us put together some protocols that will focus on the prevention and control,” he said.

“Also, on the containment of the virus at the border and within the community. We have had a number of discussions with our stakeholders since Thursday and over the weekend.

“Group of people have come together to look at how we can contextualise a lot of our protocols to be able to be relevant to the Fiji context.

“I think one of one of the problems we have is that monkeypox has characteristics that are related to smallpox.  Protection measures that were with smallpox also apply to monkeypox.

“Most of the protection measures that apply to coronavirus also apply to monkeypox. The problem that I see is only that it is a rare disease,” he said.

He said this does not mean that healthcare workers need to put their guard down, they need to be alert as cases of monkeypox have been reported in countries like Australia.’

By Nacanieli Tuilevuka