Monkeypox is believed to have spread within the US, and nine cases have now been identified in seven states, according to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky.
In a news conference Thursday, Walensky said the nine cases came from Massachusetts, New York, Florida, Utah, Washington, California and Virginia. Most of the nine cases had recent international travel to areas with active monkey pox cases, but not all of them.
“We have to assume that there is some spread in the community,” Walensky said. “But there is currently active contact tracing to understand if and how these cases may have been in contact with each other or with others in other countries.”
On Monday, the CDC reported five cases (one confirmed and four likely) from four states, and all cases were reported to have recent travel histories. Health experts expect more cases to be identified as awareness of the infection rises and health officials trace contacts of known cases.
As before, nearly all nine cases in men who identify as gay, bisexual or are men who have sex with men are a reflection of what health officials elsewhere are seeing during the current multinational outbreak.
“This is a community that has shown the strength and ability to address challenges to their health by focusing on compassion and science,” Walensky said, referring to the response to the AIDS epidemic.
Walensky stressed that the response to the current outbreak should be “guided by science, not stigma”. While some groups are at higher risk of infection, the virus infects indiscriminately. Infectious diseases are “not included in social networks, and the risk of exposure is not limited to a particular group,” she said. The case in Virginia, for example, is a woman who recently traveled to an African country.
The relatively small number of cases in the US is related to a growing outbreak affecting more than 20 countries, most of them in Europe. Unofficial counts include 320 confirmed cases and a further 73 suspected cases worldwide.
Still, health experts consider the monkeypox risk to the general population to be essentially very low. The virus is not easily spread among humans and requires prolonged, close contact to transmit. As such, relatives of infected people and health professionals caring for them are most at risk. There are also effective antiviral treatments and vaccines available to fight monkey pox. Health officials in the US provide those options to health professionals and other contacts of the known cases. Treatments and vaccines have already been used in California, Florida and Massachusetts, CDC officials said Thursday.
