ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Research Article | Open Access
Shariq Ahmed1, Md. Mobasshir Hassan2, Fatima Khan1 , Asfia Sultan1 and Mohammad Salman Shah3
1Department of Microbiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College & Hospital, Aligarh Muslim University, Uttar Pradesh, India.
2Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College & Hospital, Aligarh Muslim University, Uttar Pradesh, India.
3Department of Community Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College & Hospital,
Aligarh Muslim University, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Article Number: 8279 | © The Author(s). 2022
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2022;16(suppl 1):3155-3167. https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.16.SPL1.09
Received: 30 November 2022 | Accepted: 23 December 2022 | Published online: 29 December 2022
Issue online: 30 December 2022
Abstract

Human monkeypox (now termed as the “Mpox”) was considered a geographically isolated disease until recently, but the current spread of the disease over 110 locations around the world has created an environment of fear. This study was thus conducted to evaluate the knowledge and apprehensions about the ongoing outbreak of Monkeypox among the medical students and nursing staff who can be a vital source of dissemination of knowledge to the general population. A semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire, was used in this cross-sectional offline study. The study population comprised Medical undergraduate students and nursing staff of a medical college situated in northern India. A total of 340 participants took part in the study comprising 302(88.8%) medical undergraduates and 38(11.1%) nursing staff. Overall, the knowledge of medical students and nursing staff was unsatisfactory. When the questionnaire data were analyzed only 17.05% of the participants had good knowledge, 20.58% had moderate knowledge and 65.78% had poor knowledge. Overall knowledge about the human monkeypox virus and disease was underwhelming. Medical students and nursing staff can be a vital source of dissemination of knowledge to the general population. In this era of emerging threats; to fill the knowledge gaps of the health care professionals’ strategies like continuing medical education, webinars, seminars, and workshops primarily focussing on better clinical, prevention, and control practices should be conducted frequently.

Keywords

Mpox, Monkeypox Virus, Smallpox, Knowledge, Outbreak, Apprehension

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© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.