The Baguio City Health Services Office (CHSO) has established a team to focus on the potential threat of monkeypox in the city after a case has been confirmed within the past week.
Last Saturday, Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong said that the CHSO had confirmed a monkeypox case in the city. A 28-year-old male was confirmed to have contracted the disease from the Clade II monkeypox virus strain, which is known to be less severe than the Clade I variant but still infectious.
In response to the confirmation of the disease in the city’s borders, the CHSO team is laying the groundwork for Baguio’s monkeypox protocols, which includes contact tracing and the development of procedures for case management and disease transmission prevention.
CHSO Head Celia Brillantes, however, clarified on Monday, Jan. 20, that reports of a Baguio monkeypox death were incorrect.
While there was a 32-year-old monkeypox victim who had died of the disease and had been interred in Baguio, Brillantes said that the victim had contracted the disease, received medical aid, and died in Manila, and was simply brought home to Baguio to be laid to rest as he had relatives in the city.
She said that there was no known ties between the casualty and the active case, whose only direct contact has been traced and isolated.
