As we told you, the Mexican health professionals have returned to their advice from 2 years ago when the COVID pandemic became a global problem. They are recommending that their citizens should make use of face masks, social distancing, disinfecting public spaces, hand washing, and ensure that their faces are covered when coughing or sneezing.
That's the same advice that the Director of Health and Wellness shared with us when the topic of monkeypox prevention came up during this afternoon's interview:
Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa - Director, Public Health & Wellness
"So, the prevention is very similar to the prevention that we have all been practicing with COVID. It would be avoiding contact with material that's infected. We need to isolate the infected person and the infected person's contacts very early. We need to protect vulnerable populations, so pregnant women, persons with cancer, and persons with a reduced immune response. These persons again are known as high risk or persons who would have more severe symptoms. So co-morbidities again come into play here, persons with poorly controlled diabetes and poorly controlled hypertension. All these people are at risk of having worsening symptoms from the virus. And so we promote, again, protecting ourselves, isolating at home, avoiding skin-to-skin contact, face-to-face contact if you think that you may be exposed, washing of hands and wearing masks as well, properly over the nose and mouth. According to W.H.O., presently, to June 27th worldwide, we had 3413 cases. From June 27 to date, W.H.O. has already reported an additional 2614 cases, so about 70% of an increase, totaling 6,027 new cases worldwide with two deaths that have been reported. Of all these cases, more than 80% of them have been reported in Europe. All right, so in our region, Region of the Americas, we have a case reported in Jamaica, a case reported in the Bahamas, a case that was reported in the Dominican Republic last week, and as you all are aware, a case in Mexico was reported yesterday of an older person who was confirmed positive on July 18th, 2022. We have gotten confirmation from our Mexican counterparts that this person, along with his or her contacts, is in complete isolation. The person has been reported as being stable at this time. And also, the epidemiologist, our counterpart in Mexico, has reported that this person has no links with any Belizeans or with any travel to Belize."
