The Ministry of Health monitors information around the world and is in contact with the health authorities in the various countries. Most cases of the disease were caused by an infection that occurred outside Israel, but the Ministry of Health has already reported infections that occurred in Israel. The same thing happened to M., who told the N12 how he discovered that he had contracted the monkey pox after sexual contact with a tourist from England who came to visit Israel.
“A week after the exposure to the cause of the infection – the disease started in me with weakness and unclear symptoms in my stomach, which the doctor later explained to me that these were symptoms of fever,” M. said. “The next day the fever really started to go up a lot, to an extreme state of 40 degrees. I felt muscle aches and back pain, and there was excessive sweating, but I came out negative on a corona test.”
M. said that on the day he started to feel unwell, one smallpox appeared in his left testicle, “but it looked like a pimple and I did not know what it was.” After 4 days the fever dropped and his body temperature returned to the normal range, then he noticed that the wound had grown a little and changed its color a bit to brown. “It occurred to me at the time that it might be related to this disease,” M. said, “but I thought it was just contaminated.” At this point more wounds began to appear in various areas of his body.
On the fifth day of the illness, the tourist contacted him and had sex with him and told him that he was positive about the virus that causes monkey pox. The Ministry of Health reports that at this stage the majority of cases diagnosed are among men who have sex with men, but emphasize that the risk factor for infection is close and intimate contact of any kind, and not sexual orientation. “When the smallpox comes out, they turn into brown and unattractive blisters and there is a rash around them and it is unbearable,” M. said. “At night I did not fall asleep from itching and pain.”
When M. reported to the Ministry of Health about the contact and the symptoms he suffered from, they referred him to the HMO – and from there referred him to Ichilov. At the hospital he was sent for contact isolation, where they took a sample from the first bladder and checked his body measurements. “They reassured me that the severe symptoms of the disease were probably behind me – and I was sent to home isolation,” M. shared. “The end of the insulation depends on the smallpox drying out and the scab falling off – this is the sign that they are no longer contagious. There are those who will finish it before and there are those who have been ill with it for a month and it does not go away.”
The next day, Ichilov received the results of the test, which showed that he was indeed positive for monkey pox, and the information was also passed on to the Ministry of Health. “I have about 16 smallpox all over my body right now, even on my face, and I’m afraid of scars,” M. said, “but the guy I contracted had 200 smallpox and he’s in terrible suffering.”
M. told about a phenomenon that not many people are probably aware of: self-infection. “If you touch one of the blisters and then you touch another part of the skin, you are infecting yourself elsewhere,” he told the N12. “So I covered the wounds with band-aids and I change clothes all the time.”
Because it is a disease that is transmitted by contact, the isolation is slightly different from what we know in the case of the corona virus, and the Ministry of Health allows ventilation with long clothes and a mask. In a closed place, wearing gloves is also required.
The Ministry of Health again asks that anyone who suspects that he develops symptoms that may be suitable for monkey pox: fever or a blister rash (even one blister) that may also appear in the genital area, together with a suitable epidemiological connection (was in close physical contact with a person with symptoms) – check with The attending physician.
The disease usually goes away on its own without treatment, but possible complications of monkey pox include secondary infection, bronchopneumonia, sepsis, encephalitis and corneal infection to blindness.