MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/. Russia’s consumer rights watchdog recommends that public health executive bodies take additional measures to raise ambulance teams’ mpox awareness.

"Public health executive bodies are recommended to take additional measures to ensure ambulance teams readiness to deal with patients with suspected mpox, transport them designated medical establishments, to ensure that such establishments are prepared for treating such patients, including the availability of medicine, individual protection gear for medical personnel, and to exercise control over the epidemiological regime," the watchdog said in a document posted on its website.

The watchdog also recommends isolating mpox patients in special wards.

Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is a rare viral disease which is endemic to remote regions near tropical forests of Central and Western Africa. The first case of an animal transmitting the disease to humans was recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970. According to the WHO, this virus is usually transmitted to humans by wild animals, such as rodents and primates, while its secondary spread among humans is limited. Usually the lethality coefficient during mpox outbreaks ranges from 1% to 10% with the majority of fatalities affecting younger age groups.

On August 14, World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared mpox a global public health emergency.