Following the first case of monkeypox in the country, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr. said the government is currently on guard against monkeypox.
“Pero sa ngayon, ‘yung monkeypox ay talagang nakabantay tayo dahil nasanay na tayo rito sa Covid-19. Nakabantay tayo nang husto. Pero siguro masasabi natin sa ngayon, madaling masabi na wala tayong kaso dito sa Pilipinas sa ngayon (But right now, we are on guard against monkeypox because people are now familiar with Covid-19. We are very vigilant. But maybe we can say right now, it's easy to say that we don't have a case here in the Philippines right now),” he said on Monday, August 1, during his visit to Pasig City.
Marcos said monkeypox is not as scary as Covid-19, which according to experts, is more transmissible.
“It’s unfortunate that we have recorded our monkeypox case one, one monkeypox. Let me stress on that, it is one monkeypox case here in the Philippines,” the President said, adding that the patient infected with monkeypox has already recuperated.
“So we don’t have any more cases of monkeypox. But even then, I want to be very clear to everyone, this is not Covid-19... Hindi nakakatakot kagaya ng Covid-19 ‘yung monkeypox (Monkeypox is not as scary as Covid-19).”
However, Marcos made no mention about changing border protocols amid the detection of monkeypox in the country.
The chief executive has urged the public to practice necessary precautions such as washing of hands to curb the spread of the disease.
In May, infectious disease expert Dr. Rontgene M. Solante said that Covid-19 is more transmissible than monkeypox because it can be transmitted in several ways.
“Aside from the droplet, you can also have airborne because of a very small particle. It can remain in the air, and when you will be exposed that’s another way, and there’s also contact transmission,” he said during a “Laging Handa” briefing.
Per the infectious disease expert, the most common human-to-human mode of transmission of monkeypox is only respiratory droplets.
On July 29, the Department of Health (DOH) announced that the Philippines has detected its first case of the monkeypox virus.
DOH Officer-in-Charge Undersecretary for Public Health Services Team Beverly Ho said the country’s first monkeypox case was a 31-year-old Filipino national who arrived from abroad last July 19.
She noted that the person has prior travel to countries with documented monkeypox cases.