HEALTH SERVICE CEO Paul Reid has said that Ireland has ordered smallpox vaccines and that the HSE may decide to do a monkeypox vaccination campaign for healthcare workers.
Reid, speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme, sought to reassure people that the disease is mild and not easily spread.
It comes after Northern Ireland’s Public Health Agency yesterday confirmed the first case of monkeypox on the island of Ireland.
The agency held a press briefing yesterday. It said that the confirmed case was not unexpected following the presence of monkeypox cases in Britain.
The virus can be passed on through close person-to-person contact, or contact with items used by a person who has monkeypox, such as clothes, bedding or utensils. Monkeypox is usually a self-limiting illness and most people recover within a few weeks.
“We have cases in the north of the island so more than likely we’ll see cases in our own health service,” Reid said.
“Firstly to reassure our public it doesn’t spread easily between people that’s generally a skin to skin transmission. But that’s not to say that it may become possible it’ll be airborne in the future.
“It is a mild self limiting illness and most people do recover in weeks,” he said.
Reid said Ireland had secured an order of vaccines for monkeypox and these would be delivered “shortly”.
Monkeypox is caused by a virus in the same family as smallpox, and the smallpox vaccine can be used to prevent the zoonotic illness.
He said the HSE has put in place incident management teams and that they were liaising with international disease surveillance as well as Northern Ireland authorities to track the spread of the illness.
“We’ll take our advice from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee as we have throughout all vaccination programs and in terms of what people have been directly impacted by the virus and what people might be indirectly at risk.
“We’ll take that advice and NIAC are just considering that at the moment and we will do it.
“Certainly there is evidence across Europe and indeed in the North to vaccinate healthcare workers who may be in contact as well,” he added.
No cases have yet been confirmed in the Republic of Ireland according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre.
Dr Cillian de Gascun – Director of the National Virus Reference Laboratory – said that he “wouldn’t be surprised at all” to see cases identified in the Republic.
However, the infectious disease expert said he expected it to be a small number.
Dr de Gascun stressed that traditionally monkeypox is not considered to be a very infectious virus – particularly compared to Covid-19.
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