[File Photo]

The Health Ministry continues to screen and monitor people arriving from a list of countries with evidence of community transmission of monkeypox.

Permanent Secretary for Health Doctor James Fong says Fiji is classed in group one States Parties, with no history of monkeypox in the human population or not having detected a case of monkeypox for over 21 days.

Fong adds that the ministry’s guidelines for early detection and response, as well as laboratory testing, have been distributed to public and private clinicians.

The PS states that a team is awaiting testing supplies and testing for monkeypox will soon be done at the Fiji Centre for Disease Control.

In addition, Fong says that the ongoing efforts to develop genomic sequencing capability at Fiji CDC will also provide the ministry with greater capacity to deal with infection threats now and in the future.

Meanwhile, the fall in non-COVID immunization has resulted in eight suspected measles and two rubella cases.