Health professionals have called on South Africans not to resort to bigotry around monkeypox after the first case of the disease was confirmed in a 30-year-old Johannesburg man with no history of international travel. Health Minister Joe Phaahla explained that “The disease only spreads through close droplets, so you cannot get it by being in the same room with an infected person,” pointing out that “the main feature is that transmission is through close contact”. A communique by the country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases explains that monkeypox presents with an acute illness characterised by fever and general flu-like symptoms, followed by the eruption of a blister-like rash on the skin. The disease is rarely fatal, and cases typically resolve within two to four weeks and usually does not require hospital treatment.
