Jakarta. The Health Ministry has assigned 12 state laboratories across the country to conduct early detection of Mpox and prevent the outbreak, an official said on Sunday.

Those laboratories are located in big cities in West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta, Banten, East Java, Riau Islands, North Sumatra, East Kalimantan, South Sulawesi, and Papua.

Yudhi said foreign visitors are required to reveal information about their medical records and recent travel history by filling in forms at entry gates after the World Health Organization declared Mpox as a global health emergency.

“Visitors with illnesses are advised not to continue their trip [in Indonesia],” he said.

Indonesia recorded 73 Mpox cases with no fatality in 2023.

AP reported that the 2022 Mpox outbreak in more than 70 countries was slowed within months, thanks largely to vaccination programs and drugs being made available to at-risk populations in rich countries.

At the moment, the majority of Mpox cases are in Africa -- and 96 percent of those cases and deaths are in Congo, one of the world's poorest countries whose health system has mostly collapsed from the strain of malnutrition, cholera and measles.

Mpox, also known as monkeypox, is spread primarily through close skin-to-skin contact with infected people or their soiled clothes or bedsheets. It often causes visible skin lesions that could make people less likely to be in close contact with others.

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