A man in Indonesia has tested positive for monkeypox, making him the country’s first confirmed case of the disease.
Health officials said the 27-year-old, who lives in the capital Jakarta, had returned from an overseas trip on August 8 and began experiencing symptoms five days later.
He went to see a doctor and tested positive for monkeypox on Friday night. He is now isolating at home.
Health ministry spokesman Mohammad Syahril said: “This is a self-limiting disease that will disappear after 20 days if the patient does not have any pre-existing conditions.”
He added that the government does not at this stage see the need to implement any community-level restrictions to contain monkeypox.
Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation with more than 270 million people, has been on alert for monkeypox since the World Health Organisation (WHO) asked countries to increase their vigilance following an outbreak in the UK which began in May.
Before then, the monkeypox virus was only endemic in several African countries.
Monkeypox spreads when people have close, physical contact.
Most people recover without needing treatment, but the skin lesions it creates can be extremely painful. More severe cases can result in complications including brain inflammation and death.
Globally, there have been more than 31,000 cases of monkeypox reported in nearly 90 countries and the WHO last month declared the outbreak a global emergency.
Monkeypox is not a totally new disease but one that has been known since at least the 1970s and has been a serious challenge in Africa for years.
With only a limited global supply of vaccines, authorities are racing to stop the spread of the disease.
