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Surge in Overlapping Viral Outbreaks Threatens ‘Tripledemic’ Crisis

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COVID cases are on the rise again in many countries. And this time, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has company. In the United States, Europe and Asia, the flu virus and a third dangerous pathogen—the respiratory syncytial virus—are surging at the same time as the novel-coronavirus.

It’s a “tripledemic,” to use an admittedly non-scientific term. And it’s a harbinger of our pathogenic future. As we chop down more forests, releasing more and more animal viruses into the human population—and as disinformation floods social media, driving vaccine-skepticism to startling highs—overlapping viral outbreaks could become the norm.

Add another monkeypox or bird flu outbreak, and we might even experience a “quadrupledemic.” Besides potentially overwhelming health systems, the simultaneous outbreaks come with another troubling risk. Research indicates they might actually make each other worse.

Epidemiologists expect viral infections to spike in the winter months. People are traveling for various holidays, dragging their viruses along with them and exposing everyone else along the way. Cold weather drives people indoors, where they share air, spittle and any pathogens riding on the air and spittle.

Hence the seasonal flu outbreaks we usually see in the winter. COVID has also developed a seasonal pattern for the same reasons. So it came as no surprise that COVID cases began ticking upward in the U.S., Europe and Japan in recent weeks. There’s an alarming surge in novel-coronavirus infections in China, too—but there are unique reasons for that.

COVID and flu were about to begin their usual winter rampage when the respiratory syncytial virus showed up in a big way, too. At the peak of the RSV outbreak in the U.S. in mid-November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention logged a case-rate five times as high as last year.

The European division of the World Health Organization summed up the crisis in a Dec. 1 statement. “The region is currently experiencing increasing circulation of influenza and RSV. Together with COVID-19, these viruses are expected to have a high impact on our health services and populations this winter.”

RSV usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms—and most people recover quickly. In infants and seniors, however, RSV can be deadly. It’s the leading cause of pneumonia in newborns. Besides the cumulative strain that RSV and other viruses can place on hospitals when they surge simultaneously, there are signs that the flu and COVID are making RSV more dangerous—and vice versa.

James Lawler, an infectious disease expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, pieced together the clues. “We had relatively normal levels of flu and RSV activity last year, but with relatively normal … hospitalization [or] death consequences,” he told The Daily Beast. “This year, we have somewhat higher than normal flu and RSV activity—at least earlier for flu—and much higher rates of hospitalization in young people.”

Last year’s winter surge in COVID, driven by the Omicron variant, may have weakened millions of people who wouldn’t normally be at high risk for flu and RSV. “COVID results in long-lasting disruption in immune function and health effects in people well after acute infection,” Lawler explained.

It’s okay to be skeptical of possible interplay between the three viruses. “It’s difficult to say we have hard evidence,” Lawler stressed. But he noted a compelling bit of circumstantial evidence. “Countries that have done better controlling COVID—South Korea, Japan, Taiwan—are not experiencing increased levels of hospitalization from flu or RSV this year.” Sure, the rate of flu and RSV is high in Japan, but the severity is normal—and most people are recovering at home.

Research could eventually prove, or disprove, that the immune effects of one viral infection make a separate and different infection more likely or worse. While we wait for the science to catch up, we’re walking on epidemiological thin ice. Humanity seems determined to expose itself to more and more viruses. At same time, it’s equally determined not to protect itself from the effects of these pathogens.

Many of the worst human viruses didn’t start in humans. They’re animal viruses that made the leap to homo sapiens after prolonged exposure. Monkeypox was endemic in monkey and rodent populations in West and Central Africa and only became a human problem with the accelerating destruction of the African rainforest in the 1970s. COVID appears to have jumped from pangolins (a kind of scaly anteater) or bats to people, possibly at a wildlife market in Wuhan, China. Bird flu, which occasionally rages through human populations, is—as its name implies—a bird virus.

The more forests we chop down, the more wild animals we trade as pets or for food and the more chickens we cram into industrial farms, the more viruses we come into contact with—and the greater the risk of animal-to-people transmission. A process scientists call “zoonosis.”

Barring a profound shift in the way people build and eat, zoonosis is only going to get worse. “Larger human population overall—increases the number of human-animal contact events,” Tony Moody, a professor of immunology at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, told The Daily Beast. There’s also a “need for increased food production because of the increased population, so increasing domestic animal contacts.”

We could protect ourselves from the worst outcomes with vaccines. But the trends on that front are equally discouraging. As trust in science wanes and more people get their “news” from conspiracy theorists on social media, vaccine uptake is beginning to suffer.

A quarter of Americans still refuse to get any COVID vaccines. Uptake of the latest booster is catastrophically low in the U.S. More people didn’t bother getting their flu jabs this year, as well. Vulnerable communities eagerly embraced the monkeypox vaccine, thank goodness, but rejection of the tried-and-true polio vaccine in a handful of New York counties led to a rare—and frankly terrifying—surge in polio cases this summer. Polio, once widespread, can cause paralysis in a small number of cases.

Zoonosis and vaccine-hesitancy are the twin forces of the overlapping viral outbreaks that could define our epidemiological future as a species. It’s hard to imagine any point in the foreseeable future when humanity won’t be grappling with at least one major viral outbreak, because it’s hard to imagine humanity swiftly ending deforestation and quickly reversing the flow of disinformation on the internet.

Preventable outbreaks are here to stay. From probably more than one major virus at a time.

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Biden administration will end monkeypox public health emergency

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People line up to get a monkeypox vaccination at a new walk-up monkeypox vaccination site at Barnsdall Art Park on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022 in Hollywood, CA. 

Brian Van Der Brug | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

The Biden administration will end the public health emergency declared in response to the monkeypox outbreak, as new infections have declined dramatically and vaccination rates have increased.

The Health and Human Services Department does not expect it will renew the emergency declaration after it expires on Jan. 31 “given the low number of cases today,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement Friday.

“But we won’t take our foot off the gas — we will continue to monitor the case trends closely and encourage all at-risk individuals to get a free vaccine,” he said. “As we move into the next phase of this effort, the Biden-Harris Administration continues working closely with jurisdictions and partners to monitor trends, especially in communities that have been disproportionately affected.”

Becerra declared an emergency in August in an effort to accelerate a vaccination and education campaign as the virus was spreading swiftly in the gay community. The spread of the virus, dubbed “mpox” on Monday by the World Health Organization in order to reduce stigma associated with its name, has slowed drastically since.

Mpox has infected nearly 30,000 people and killed 15 in the U.S. since health officials confirmed the first domestic case in May, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. outbreak is the largest in the world.

But infections have slowed dramatically since August, when new cases peaked at 638 per day on average. The U.S. is currently averaging about seven new cases a day, according to CDC data.

U.S. health officials have said the outbreak has slowed because vaccinations have increased dramatically, and people have changed their behavior in response to education campaigns about how to avoid infection.

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The vaccination campaign got off to a rocky start, with limited supplies resulting in long lines at clinics and protests in some cities. But vaccinations increased significantly after the White House created a task force and HHS declared a public health emergency.

More than 1.1 million doses of the Jynneos vaccine have been administered in the U.S. since the summer. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has said about 1.7 million gay and bisexual people who are HIV positive or are taking medication to prevent HIV infection are at highest risk from mpox.

Mpox has spread primarily through sexual contact among men who have sex with men. The virus causes rashes resembling pimples or blisters that can develop in sensitive areas and be very painful. Though mpox is rarely fatal, people with compromised immune systems are at higher risk of severe disease.

The CDC, in a report published in late October, said it is unlikely the U.S. will eradicate mpox in the near future. The virus will probably continue to circulate at low level primarily in communities of men who have sex with men, according to CDC. Though anyone can catch mpox, there’s little evidence of the virus spreading widely in the general population so far, according to CDC.

The global mpox outbreak this year is the largest in history with more than 80,000 confirmed cases in more than 100 countries. The current outbreak is highly unusual because the virus is spreading widely between people in Europe and North America.

Historically, mpox spread at low levels in remote areas of West and Central Africa where people caught the virus from infected animals.

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WHO renames monkeypox to avoid stigma

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The World Health Organization on Monday renamed the viral disease monkeypox as “mpox” due to concerns about racism and stigmatization.

The new name will be used “simultaneously for one year” while the old one is phased out, the WHO said in a statement.

The transition period for adoption of the new name is aimed at mitigating concerns raised by experts “about confusion caused by a name change in the midst of a global outbreak,” it said.

Photo taken on Feb. 14, 2020, shows the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva. (Kyodo) ==Kyodo

“When the outbreak of monkeypox expanded earlier this year, racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings and in some communities was observed,” the Geneva-based organization said.

According to the WHO, the disease was named in 1970 when the first cases in humans were confirmed. The virus that causes the disease was first discovered in captive monkeys in Denmark in 1958.

The U.N. health body proposed mpox following guidelines it released in 2015 to “minimize unnecessary negative effects on nations, economies and people” when naming new human infectious diseases.

The guidelines recommend avoiding names that refer to animals, geographic locations and ethnic groups, such as “swine flu” and “Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.”

The names of diseases should consist of generic descriptive terms, based on the symptoms that they cause, the WHO said.

Monkeypox began spreading outside central and western Africa, where it is endemic, in May. As of Saturday, 81,107 cases and 55 deaths had been reported to the WHO this year in 110 countries and territories, mainly in men who have sex with men.

Although uncertainty remains, rodents appear to be the natural reservoir of the virus, it said.

 

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WHO renames monkeypox as ‘mpox’

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CNN
 — 

The World Health Organization announced Monday that “mpox” is now the preferred name for monkeypox.

“Both names will be used simultaneously for one year while ‘monkeypox’ is phased out,” the organization said.

Monkeypox was named in 1970, more than a decade after the virus that causes the disease was discovered in captive monkeys, the organization said. But monkeypox probably didn’t start in monkeys – its origin is still unknown – and the virus can be found in several other kinds of animals. The name was created before WHO published best practices for naming diseases in 2015.

Scientists and experts have pushed since the start of the recent outbreak to change the name to avoid discrimination and stigma that could steer people away from testing and vaccination. Stigma has been an ongoing concern as the outbreak has largely affected men who have sex with men. In the United States, Black and Hispanic people have been disproportionately affected, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

This summer, New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan sent a letter to WHO to urge it to act quickly on a new name, saying there’s “growing concern for the potentially devastating and stigmatizing effects that the messaging around the ‘monkeypox’ virus can have on these already vulnerable communities.”

In August, WHO encouraged people to propose new names for monkeypox by submitting suggestions to it website. WHO said Monday that the consultation process included experts from medical, scientific, classification and statistics advisory committees “which constituted of representatives from government authorities of 45 different countries.”

“The issue of the use of the new name in different languages was extensively discussed. The preferred term mpox can be used in other languages,” WHO said in its statement.

WHO said Monday that “monkeypox” will remain searchable in the International Classification of Diseases in order to allow access to historic information, and the one-year period when both will be used allows time for publications and communications to be updated.

So far, more than 81,000 monkeypox cases in 110 cases have been reported to WHO in the recent outbreak. WHO says the global risk remains moderate, and outside of countries in West and Central Africa, the outbreak continues to primarily affect men who have sex with men.

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WHO recommends new name for monkeypox disease

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Following a series of consultations with global experts, WHO will begin using a new preferred term “mpox” as a synonym for monkeypox. Both names will be used simultaneously for one year while “monkeypox” is phased out.

When the outbreak of monkeypox expanded earlier this year, racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings and in some communities was observed and reported to WHO. In several meetings, public and private, a number of individuals and countries
raised concerns and asked WHO to propose a way forward to change the name.

Assigning names to new and, very exceptionally, to existing diseases is the responsibility of WHO under the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and the WHO Family of International Health Related Classifications through a consultative process
which includes WHO Member States.

WHO, in accordance with the ICD update process, held consultations to gather views from a range of experts, as well as countries and the general public, who were invited to submit suggestions for new names. Based on these consultations, and further discussions
with WHO’s Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO recommends the following:

  • Adoption of the new synonym mpox in English for the disease.
  • Mpox will become a preferred term, replacing monkeypox, after a transition period of one year. This serves to mitigate the concerns raised by experts about confusion caused by a name change in the midst of a global outbreak. It also gives time to
    complete the ICD update process and to update WHO publications.  
  • The synonym mpox will be included in the ICD-10 online in the coming days. It will be a part of the official 2023 release of ICD-11, which is the current global standard for health data, clinical documentation and statistical aggregation.
  • The term “monkeypox” will remain a searchable term in ICD, to match historic information.

Considerations for the recommendations included rationale, scientific appropriateness, extent of current usage, pronounceability, usability in different languages, absence of geographical or zoological references, and the ease of retrieval of historical
scientific information.

Usually, the ICD updating process can take up to several years. In this case, the process was accelerated, though following the standard steps.

Various advisory bodies were heard during the consultation process, including experts from the medical and scientific and classification and statistics advisory committees which constituted of representatives from government authorities of 45 different
countries.

The issue of the use of the new name in different languages was extensively discussed.  The preferred term mpox can be used in other languages. If additional naming issues arise, these will be addressed via the same mechanism. Translations are usually
discussed in formal collaboration with relevant government authorities and the related scientific societies.

WHO will adopt the term mpox in its communications, and encourages others to follow these recommendations, to minimize any ongoing negative impact of the current name and from adoption of the new name.

Note to editors

Background information on naming of the disease, the virus that causes the disease, and the virus variants or clades:

Naming the disease:

  • Human monkeypox was given its name in 1970 (after the virus that causes the disease was discovered in captive monkeys in 1958), before the publication of WHO best practices in naming diseases, published in 2015. According to these best practices, new disease names should be given with the aim to minimize unnecessary negative impact of names on trade, travel, tourism
    or animal welfare, and avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.
  • Assigning new names to new and, very exceptionally, to existing diseases is the responsibility of WHO under the International Classification of Diseases and the WHO Family of International Health Related Classifications (WHO-FIC) through a consultative process which includes WHO Member States. ICD is part of the WHO Family of
    International Health Related Classifications (WHO-FIC).

Naming of viruses:
The naming of viruses is the responsibility of the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV). Prior to the 2022 global
monkeypox outbreak, there was already a process underway to reconsider the naming of all orthopoxvirus species, including monkeypox virus. This will continue under ICTV leadership.

Naming monkeypox virus variants or clades:
In August, a group of global experts convened by WHO agreed on new names for monkeypox virus variants, as part of ongoing efforts to align the names of the monkeypox disease, virus and variants
– or clades – with current best practices. Consensus was reached to refer to the former Congo Basin (Central African) clade as Clade one (I) and the former West African clade as Clade two (II). Additionally, it was agreed that the Clade
II consists of two subclades, IIa and IIb. See WHO press release on naming of monkeypox clades.

 

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Health

WHO to rename ‘Monkeypox’ to ‘MPOX’ at Biden admin’s request

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The World Health Organization (WHO) is set to change the name of the monkeypox virus to “MPOX.” 

The change in nomenclature is an attempt to destigmatize the virus at the behest of President Biden’s administration, according to a report from Politico that cited three anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter. 

WHO CHIEF SCIENTIST SOUMYA SWAMINATHAN LEAVING AGENCY

The World Health Organization maintains monkeypox’s status a global health emergency.
(REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo)

Sources said that senior Biden officials have consistently urged the WHO to make the name change and have threatened to adopt new terminology without WHO’s approval.

According to the report, Biden administration believes that the name “monkeypox” carries an unnecessary stigma for people of color.

MONKEYPOX BY THE NUMBERS: FACTS ABOUT THE RARE VIRUS THAT’S CURRENTLY SPREADING

Health officials have discovered that administering the monkeypox vaccine through intradermal injection, or injecting a small dose in between layers of skin, is just as effective and allows a single dose to be used to vaccinate five people instead of one.
(REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration)

The monkeypox outbreak continues to represent a global health emergency, which is the WHO’s highest level of alert, the U.N. agency’s Emergency Committee said at the beginning of November.

The WHO label, a “public health emergency of international concern”, is designed to trigger a coordinated international response and could unlock funding to collaborate on sharing vaccines and treatments.

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Nathan Brookes, of Agoura, gets his second shot of monkeypox vaccine at the Balboa Sports Complex vaccine site in Los Angeles on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022. 
((Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images))

The U.S. has seen approximately 29,200 cases of monkeypox total within its borders.

The CDC states, “At this time, data suggest that gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men make up the majority of cases in the current monkeypox outbreak. However, anyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, who has been in close, personal contact with someone who has monkeypox is at risk. Take steps to prevent getting monkeypox. If you have any symptoms of monkeypox, talk to a healthcare provider.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

Timothy Nerozzi is a writer for Fox News Digital. You can follow him on Twitter @timothynerozzi and can email him at timothy.nerozzi@fox.com

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Monkeypox may spread before symptoms start, study suggests

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CNN
 — 

More than half of monkeypox cases in the current outbreak may have been passed to others before symptoms appeared, according to a new modeling study from the United Kingdom.

The study, which was led by disease modelers at the UK Health Security Agency, is contrary to current public health guidance about how monkeypox spreads. It also has important implications for how to contain outbreaks of the infection, particularly those that spring up within sexual networks. The research is published in the medical journal The BMJ.

Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist with the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, says the new study gets to the heart of a question that public health officials have been trying to answer for months: How, exactly, is the virus spreading?

In countries where the virus routinely spreads, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, most of those who get it are children living in rural hunting villages. Much of what we know about the virus comes from those settings, where transmission occurs in families living in close quarters. In countries now having outbreaks due to imported cases, nearly all of those infected are men having sex with other men, and routes of transmission have changed.

“The thing is with poxviruses in general, you tend to see transmission once symptoms develop,” said Hanage, who was not involved in the study. “For several months now, there’s been a concern, or sort of the increasing realization, that if you’re talking about transmission in sexual networks, if there’s any type of contact where pre-symptomatic transmission would be possible, that’s it.”

Hanage says transmission before people know they are infected helps to explain the explosive growth of the outbreak before vaccination became widespread. It also suggests that the virus is likely being passed through sex before a person has symptoms they’re aware of. Monkeypox virus has previously been detected in semen, and also in the anal swabs of infected men who didn’t have symptoms.

Before this study, doctors were aware it was possible to shed the virus before symptoms appeared, “but we didn’t know how common it was,” said Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health.

Since May 2022, more than 75,000 monkeypox cases have been reported globally, with 99% of those in countries where the virus does not commonly spread, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Monkeypox cases have dropped dramatically in the United States. As of October 26, the seven-day average of new monkeypox cases reported to the CDC stands at about 30 per day, down from a high of 446 cases per day in early August.

There have been 28,492 cases of monkeypox diagnosed in the US as of Wednesday, according to the CDC.

This progress indicates public health efforts to raise awareness of the infection and encourage vaccination of those at high risk are working.

But even as these efforts pay off, public health officials say it’s important to guard against complacency and misinformation about the disease to keep it from coming back.

Currently, official guidance states that people can transmit the infection only after they develop symptoms.

As of Wednesday, the CDC’s website, for example, advises readers that “A person with monkeypox can spread it to others from the time symptoms start until the rash has fully healed and a fresh layer of skin has formed.”

That guidance aligns with information from both the World Health Organization and the UK government about how monkeypox spreads.

But that’s not what epidemiologists found when they investigated contact tracing records from the current monkeypox outbreak in the UK. As in the US, about 95% of recent monkeypox cases in the UK have been among men who have sex with other men. Most cases have been reported after close sexual contact.

For the study, researchers culled records on 2,746 monkeypox cases in the UK identified from the start of their recent outbreak through August 1. From that larger set of records, they looked for cases with linked contacts where both people had infections that were confirmed by PCR tests and had recorded dates for the start of their symptoms.

They found 79 pairs of linked cases and contacts that had all the required information.

From these records, they were able to determine a metric called the serial interval, which is roughly the time between the start of symptoms in a case to the start of symptoms in the person they infected.

From a separate subset of 54 people who filled out questionnaires, researchers were able to pinpoint when they were exposed and when their symptoms first began to calculate the incubation period for the infection – how long it takes for symptoms to develop after an exposure.

They found that the incubation period was sometimes longer than the window between the start of symptoms in a case and their linked contact – a pattern that’s explained when transmission occurs ahead of symptoms.

Overall, after researchers adjusted their data to account for possible sources of bias, they found the median serial interval between cases and contacts in the study was shorter than the median incubation period for infections, “which indicates considerably greater pre-symptomatic transmission than previously thought,” the study authors write.

CNN reached out to the CDC with questions about whether the study might change its guidance on monkeypox, but didn’t receive a reply by deadline. The CDC doesn’t typically comment on research it is not involved in, and public health agencies don’t normally change their advice on the basis of a single study.

The researchers estimate that based on their data, more than half (53%) of transmission in the UK outbreak occurred in this pre-symptomatic phase of the infections.

In the study, researchers found transmission occurred up to four days before a person got their first symptoms – typically a headache, fever, swollen lymph nodes, muscle aches and a rash. Proctitis, a painful swelling of the lining of the rectum, can also occur.

“I think that it should change the messaging,” said Hanage. “I think that the messaging should be that if you were worried about monkeypox, you cannot assume that your partner is not infectious just because they don’t have symptoms.”

If they’re vaccinated, that’s a different story, Hanage said, though it’s not yet known how effective the vaccines have been at preventing infections.

Early in the summer, when vaccine supplies were scarce, public health officials were limiting vaccinations to the known contacts of people with diagnosed with monkeypox, a strategy which likely allowed continued growth of the outbreak because of pre-symptomatic spread, said Swartzberg, who was not involved in the study.

Since vaccine doses have become more plentiful, both the US and UK have switched to vaccinating people at high risk for catching the infection, which was the right strategy to curtail asymptomatic spread, Swartzberg said.

“There is sufficient data now, that shows that monkeypox can also be spread by people with no symptoms and therefore anybody at risk for contracting monkeypox – whether or not they have symptoms – should do two things: One is get vaccinated if they haven’t been vaccinated, and two is take all necessary precautions to prevent transmitting this virus,” Swartzberg said.

Other experts say that although the research appears to be well done, it’s still just a single study and needs to be repeated by others, hopefully quickly.

“This needs confirmation by more studies but has implications for vaccination-based disease elimination strategies which should be seriously considered,” said Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, who is an infectious disease specialist at Emory University.

“What proportion of cases are asymptomatic and how much do these cases contribute to seeding new transmission chains? These are urgent questions that need answers,” Titanji told the nonprofit Science Media Centre, in a statement about the study.

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Monkeypox | NEJM

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    Health

    Six more people diagnosed with Monkeypox have died

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    Six individuals across four states have died from Monkeypox over the last week, according to health agencies. 

    As the United States continues to battle and provide protection against Monkeypox, more individuals are dying from the viral disease, according to reports from state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

    Since last week, two individuals from Chicago died in Illinois, Two in New York state, one in Nevada, and one in Maryland from Monkeypox. The Chicago deaths were reported on Friday, and both individuals had other contributing health conditions, such as a weakened immune system. 

    Across the United States, the CDC has recorded more than 27,000 confirmed cases of Monkeypox. Moreover, the patients in New York had prior health conditions that contributed to their deaths. 

    MONKEYPOX: WHAT YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS — AND HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF

    In the United States, the CDC has confirmed over 27,000 cases of the viral disease. 
    (San Francisco AIDS Foundation via AP)

    “Human monkeypox is still circulating and can cause severe illness and death,” said Dr. Jinlene Chan, Maryland deputy secretary for public health services, in a statement to UPI. 

    “If you are eligible, such as being immunocompromised or at-risk, the best way to protect yourself against serious illness from MPX is by getting vaccinated,” she added. 

    SUDAN REPORTS 5 MORE MONKEYPOX INFECTIONS, STOKING FEARS OF LARGER OUTBREAKS

    The patient in Nevada is reported to be a man over the age of 50 and also was diagnosed with underlining conditions at the time of his death. 

    The first death in the U.S. from Monkeypox occurred in Los Angeles County in September after the individual was hospitalized while also being “severely immunocompromised.”

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    Health

    Six people who tested positive for monkeypox have died, health departments confirm

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    CNN
     — 

    Six people who tested positive for monkeypox – two in New York City, two in Chicago, one in Nevada and one in Maryland – have died, local health departments have confirmed.

    The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said it was “deeply saddened by the two reported deaths, and our hearts go out to the individuals’ loved ones and community.”

    “Every effort will be made to prevent additional suffering from this virus through continued community engagement, information-sharing and vaccination,” the NYC DOH said.

    The two Chicagoans who died after testing positive for monkeypox had multiple other health conditions, including weakened immune systems, according to the Chicago Department of Health (CDPH).

    “Though the number of new MPV cases has declined substantially since summer, this is a stark reminder that MPV is dangerous and can cause serious illness, and in very rare cases, even death,” said CDPH Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady.

    Monkeypox was a contributing factor in the death of a Maryland resident, who was immunocompromised and experiencing a severe case, the Maryland Department of Health (MDH) said.

    “If you are eligible, such as being immunocompromised or at-risk, the best way to protect yourself against serious illness from MPX is by getting vaccinated,” said MDH Deputy Secretary for Public Health Services Dr. Jinlene Chan.

    The first confirmed US death due to monkeypox was reported in Los Angeles County in September. A person with monkeypox in Houston died in August, but officials have not determined whether the virus caused the death.

    In late September, Ohio reported its first death of a person with monkeypox but noted that “the individual also had other health conditions.”

    It can be difficult to determine if someone has died of monkeypox. Not only would the virus have to be detected in their body, but forensic pathologists would have to “connect the dots” as to how the infection caused the death, such as by affecting certain organs, according to Dr. Priya Banerjee, a board-certified forensic pathologist in Rhode Island and clinical assistant professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Brown University.

    “To die from any infection, it’s usually systemic – meaning the whole body is affected – or a significant organ is affected, like the heart, lungs, liver or brain,” she said. “It’s not that they die with the infection; it’s because of it. So that’s the differentiation you have to make, and that’s a pretty significant differentiation. I think limitations come in with not just identifying if or what organ is affected but to what extent – and no one is going to call it a cause of death unless that’s confirmed.”

    New monkeypox cases in the United States have been steadily dropping in recent weeks but concern remains about the possibility of severe illness or death, especially in immunocompromised people.

    There were 27,884 probable or confirmed monkeypox cases reported in the US as of Friday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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