Tag Archives: monkeypox

Health

2 people die in Chicago weeks after being diagnosed with monkeypox

Leave a comment

Two Chicago residents died after being diagnosed with the monkeypox virus, the city’s Department of Health announced. The two were diagnosed with monkeypox over six weeks ago and had been hospitalized.

The two had several other health conditions, including weakened immune systems, city officials said. The two deaths were unrelated to each other, they said.

Doses of monkeypox vaccine are pictured in Chicago, on July 25, 2022.

Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images, FILE

“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 Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Allison Arwady on Friday. “Our hearts go out to these individuals’ families and friends.”

Officials said they would not disclose any other information about the two cases, including where they were being treated, to protect their privacy.

The U.S. has reported over 27,000 cases and six total deaths due to monkeypox, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Monkeypox cases have been reported in all 50 states.

This undated image obtained from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda, Md., shows a colorized transmission electron micrograph of monkeypox particles (green) found within an infected cell (pink and purple), cultured in the laboratory.

National Institute of Allergy an/AFP via Getty Images

The first confirmed case of monkeypox in the U.S. was reported in Massachusetts in May.

Monkeypox symptoms usually start within three weeks of exposure to the virus and the illness typically lasts two to four weeks, according to the CDC.

People with monkeypox get a rash that may be located on or near the genitals or anus and could be on other areas like hands, feet, chest, face or mouth. Other symptoms can include fever, chills, swollen lymph nodes, exhaustion, muscle aches and backache, headache and respiratory symptoms, according to the CDC.

Those infected may experience all or only a few symptoms. If someone has flue-like symptoms they will usually develop a rash one to four days later, the CDC says.

People enter a COVID-19 and monkeypox vaccine clinic at Wilbur Wright College in Chicago, Sept. 1, 2022.

Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune News Service via Getty Images, FILE

Officials said death due to monkeypox still remains rare. Among more than 75,000 cases reported in 2022, there have been 32 reported deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

“The vast majority of people with [monkeypox] who died have had other health conditions along with [monkeypox] causing severely weakened immune systems,” said Arwady.

She added, “Please continue to take it seriously. If you’re at risk of MPV infection, take prevention steps and get vaccinated to protect yourself and your loved ones. These measures are especially important if you have comorbidities and/or a weakened immune system.”

Chicago health officials encourage individuals who meet the eligibility criteria to get two doses of the monkeypox vaccine, 28 days apart.

Read original article here

Health

NYC Health Department Reports 2 Monkeypox Deaths, Changes Virus Name to ‘MVP’ – NBC New York

Leave a comment

New York City health officials announced two monkeypox-linked deaths on Friday, the first fatalities linked to the virus in the five boroughs, though few details on the individuals were immediately available.

According to the CDC, the United States has reported four monkeypox-linked deaths since the 2022 outbreak began, though the last data update was Thursday. The first fatality was reported in California in September.

New York City officials didn’t immediately release demographic or other information about the two residents who died, including whether they had underlying conditions, instead offering condolences in a brief statement.

“We are 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 statement read.

As of Oct. 17, the city has recorded at least 3,695 known cases of the virus. Since reaching its peak at the end of July, the outbreak of cases in New York City has dropped significantly, down to single-digit daily numbers by the beginning of this month.

To date, more than 143,000 first and second doses of the monkeypox vaccine have been administered.

New Yorkers who received their first doses are strongly advised to get their second doses 28 days after their first. Walk-in appointments are available.

To find a vaccine location by you, go to https://vaccinefinder.nyc.gov/.

Additionally, the city announced it will refer to monkeypox as MPV since the “previous name is an inaccurate and stigmatizing label for a virus that is primarily affecting a community that has already suffered a long history of bigotry.”

For more information, click here.

Read original article here

Health

Monkeypox Outbreak Leaves Risks, Questions in Its Wake

Leave a comment

As a global outbreak of monkeypox loses steam, disease researchers said they need a better understanding of how the virus spreads, and how well vaccination protects against it to predict whether it could come roaring back.

A global outbreak that gained momentum in May spread the virus much farther than it had been found previously. The virus might have reached new animal hosts, increasing the risk of future outbreaks, said epidemiologists and infectious-disease specialists. The extent to which vaccination has protected the most at-risk people from catching monkeypox is unknown.

“We can’t get lulled into this sense that monkeypox has disappeared,” said Jason Kindrachuk, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba with a focus on emerging viruses.

Case numbers have been steadily declining since early August. Daily reported cases in the U.S. have fallen to around 40, from a peak of around 440. In Ontario, once a hot spot, health officials in the Canadian province said they are considering whether to declare the outbreak over.

The slowdown is attributed to a combination of a buildup of immunity and behavioral change, disease researchers said. The exact role each played hasn’t been determined. “They are working together in many cases,” said

David Heymann,

professor of infectious-disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Dozens of countries bet that Jynneos, a vaccine made by Denmark’s

Bavarian Nordic

A/S that had sat in stockpiles as a biodefense against a possible reintroduction of smallpox, could curb the spread of monkeypox, which is part of the same virus family. Studies on smallpox vaccines in Africa had found that they were around 85% effective at preventing monkeypox, but no such studies had been undertaken with Jynneos.

Early evidence from Jynneos’s use during the outbreak suggests the bet paid off. A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that among men ages 18 to 49 in the U.S. who were eligible for Jynneos, case rates among the unvaccinated were 14 times higher than for those who had received at least one dose at least two weeks earlier. As of Oct. 18, around 647,400 people in the U.S. had received at least one dose of Jynneos, according to the CDC.

Immunity doesn’t fully explain the drop in cases, disease experts said. In the U.K., new cases started to fall before a vaccination campaign gained momentum, said Jake Dunning, senior researcher at the University of Oxford’s Pandemic Sciences Institute.

Early evidence indicates that use of the Jynneos vaccine has helped contain monkeypox.



Photo:

patrick t. fallon/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

“Vaccine probably helped to bring things down and keep it as one curve, rather than more of a roller coaster,” he said.

Also driving down cases, disease experts said, was a reduction in sexual contact by men at the highest risk of catching monkeypox. In an August survey of around 800 men who have sex with men in the U.S., around half reported taking at least one measure in response to the monkeypox outbreak to limit their number of sexual contacts. Those measures included reducing one-time sexual encounters and cutting down the number of sex partners. A U.K. report published in September found that rates of two sexually transmitted diseases that also disproportionately affect men who have sex with men fell in August, suggesting that behavior change contributed to the decline in monkeypox.

Uncertainty regarding the precise roles played by immunity and behavior change mean that it is impossible to predict the trajectory of the virus, disease experts said. “If there’s a significant proportion that is attributed to behavior change, if that behavior change is not sustainable, will we see increases again?” said Anne Rimoin, professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has been researching monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of Congo for many years.

Even if the virus fades in some places, it is likely to be reintroduced through international travel because it is present in so many countries, said Emma Thomson, a professor of infectious disease at the University of Glasgow.

Testing sewage to track viruses has drawn renewed interest after recent outbreaks of monkeypox and polio. WSJ visited a wastewater facility to find out how the testing works. Photo illustration: Ryan Trefes

It hasn’t been determined whether the virus made its way into any new animal populations during the global outbreak. While monkeypox is mainly associated with forest-dwelling rodents in western and central Africa, it has been detected in other animals. An Italian greyhound in Paris caught monkeypox in June, likely from one of its owners, according to a case report in the Lancet.

“More human infections may arise because of that,” Geoffrey Smith, an expert on poxviruses at the University of Cambridge, said of potential animal reservoirs.

In 2003, around 50 people in the U.S. caught monkeypox from pet prairie dogs that had contracted the virus after sharing caging and bedding with small animals imported from western Africa. None of those cases went on to infect other people.

The global outbreak has prompted fresh calls for more research. A U.K. government-backed science funding group this week provided 2 million pounds, the equivalent of $2.2 million, for monkeypox research to 25 scientists spanning 12 universities. The researchers said their work would include detailed genomic sequencing, studies into the immune response to vaccination, developing new therapies and investigating the potential for animals to spread monkeypox.

Scientists said they want more research into monkeypox in central Africa, where a more-severe strain of the virus known as clade I circulates, to reduce transmission in countries there and to lower the risk of its sparking a more widespread outbreak. Dr. Dunning said that a global outbreak arising from the milder clade II virus raised the possibility that it could happen with clade I.

“That would be even more concerning,” he said.

Write to Denise Roland at denise.roland@wsj.com

Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Read original article here

Health

Monkeypox cases in US fall, hit lowest level since June: CDC

Leave a comment

Monkeypox cases are continuing to decline in the United States as the outbreak keeps showing signs of receding.

As of Oct. 12, the U.S. recorded a seven-day average of 60 cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This is the lowest average recorded since June 29, which is right around the time that infections began climbing. It’s also down from the seven-day average of 443 cases recorded in early August, CDC data shows.

Trends seen in cities across the country mirror those nationwide.

Monkeypox cases in the United States

CDC

In New York City — the epicenter of the outbreak — the seven-day average has fallen to 2 as of Oct. 11 from the city’s Department of Health & Mental Hygiene. This is a sharp decline from the peak of 73 recorded in late July and early August.

Similarly, in Los Angeles, the seven-day average sits at 5 as of most recent data from Oct. 3, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health shows, which is the lowest since early July. It’s also a marked drop from the peak of 41 in late August.

Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, told ABC News the outbreak has fallen for a few reasons, one being behavioral changes.

The outbreak has primarily been concentrated in men who have sex with men, a group that includes people who identify as gay, bisexual, transgender and nonbinary, although health officials have said anyone — regardless of sexual orientation — is at risk if they have direct contact with an infected person.

Surveys have shown that high-risk groups listened to public health advice and made changes such as reducing the number of sexual partners and anonymous sexual encounters.

“There were really substantial changes among men who have sex men,” Doron said. “High proportions said that they had made significant changes in their behavior.”

Another reason, she said, is vaccines. As of Oct. 11, more than 906,000 doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine — the only vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent smallpox and monkeypox disease — have been administered across the U.S., according to the CDC.

To increase the number of JYNNEOS doses available, the FDA authorized a new strategy in August to inject the vaccine intradermally, just below the first layer of skin, rather than subcutaneously, or under all the layers of skin, allowing one vial of vaccine to be given out as five separate doses rather than a single dose.

Doron, however, said it’s too soon to claim victory over the outbreak and added that it’s important for those who are at high-risk to keep taking precautions.

A patient is inoculated with the monkeypox vaccine during a vaccination clinic at the OASIS Wellness Center, Aug. 19, 2022, in New York.

Mary Altaffer/AP, FILE

“As we have learned and seen with COVID, case numbers have a certain shape and what goes down can come up again,” she said. “So, we can’t rest on our laurels and think that’s it over.”

“The public can relax to a much greater extent than public health officials and hospital officials,” she added.

Read original article here

Health

‘Severe’ monkeypox spread brings warning from Alabama health department

Leave a comment

Severe cases of monkeypox are being reported in America and Alabama health officials are asking people at risk to get screened.

The Alabama Department of Public Health reports “at least” 139 cases of monkeypox in the state as of Tuesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said some of the cases reported across the country recently have been “severe.”

“While anyone can be infected with the contagious rash illness, male-to-male sexual contact has been a risk factor,” the Alabama health department said.

“Monkeypox is usually transmitted through close, intimate, skin-to-skin contact or through broken skin, respiratory droplets or mucous membranes.”

Monkeypox causes a rash that starts as flat spots, which then become raised and finally appears pustular. Some people have reported only a rash, but the health department said other symptoms include fever, chills, enlarged nymph nodes, muscle aches and headaches.

“Monkeypox can spread from the time symptoms begin until the rash has fully healed and a fresh layer of skin has formed,” the health department said. “This can take two to four weeks.”

Not all cases require treatment, but people with the disease need to isolate and follow infection control steps to reduce spread of the disease.

A two-dose vaccination series is available to persons at higher risk. Monkeypox testing continues to be offered at county health departments, and clinical testing is available through the ADPH Bureau of Clinical Laboratories at no charge to the patient.

Read original article here

Health

Vietnam’s first monkeypox case tests negative for virus

Leave a comment

By Le Phuong  &nbspOctober 4, 2022 | 05:57 am PT

A blister is seen on the hand of a woman infected with monkeypox in HCMC. Photo courtesy of the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases


Vietnam’s first monkeypox patient has tested negative for the virus after 12 days of treatment, director of the HCMC Hospital for Tropical Diseases said Tuesday.

The 35-year-old woman no longer has fever and her blisters are beginning to heal, said Le Manh Hung, director of the hospital.

“All close contacts of the patient since she returned to Vietnam have not shown any potential symptom for monkeypox,” he added.

The woman displayed symptoms like fatigue, chills, muscle aches, headaches and coughing, as well as rashes on several body parts from September 18 while she was traveling in Dubai. She was confirmed infected with monkeypox in Ho Chi Minh City after returning on September 22. Viral genome sequencing revealed that she was infected with a monkeypox strain that has circulated throughout many regions of the world since the beginning of this year.

Hung said the disease has not been able to spread to the community, which aligns with other reports around the world saying monkeypox is not easily transmitted among the community. Most people would recover after 10-14 days and would stop being contagious after 21 days, he added.

HCMC authorities have deployed measures to monitor entrants for monkeypox detection and prevention, the municipal Department of Health said.

As of Monday, over 68,000 monkeypox cases have been confirmed in 106 countries and territories around the world. 25 deaths have been recorded.



Read original article here

Health

CDC Says We Probably Can’t Get Rid of Monkeypox Now

Leave a comment

Image: Shutterstock (Shutterstock)

A new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers some good and bad news about the country’s ongoing monkeypox outbreak. New cases are slowing down, likely thanks to a combination of vaccination and education efforts. But it’s also likely that the virus won’t be eradicated here and will continue to circulate locally at low levels.

The prognosis comes from the CDC’s most recent technical report on monkeypox released late last week. According to the report, based on data collected up through September 23, the peak in reported new cases occurred in mid- to late August. Since then, the growth in cases has steadily declined. As of September 30, there have now been 25,851 reported cases of monkeypox in the U.S., while the seven-day average as of September 28 is 144 cases a day. Based on known information, the majority of these cases have involved gay and bisexual men who likely caught it during sex with other men.

In trying to explain this decline, the CDC authors note that vaccination is only one piece of the puzzle. That’s because cases began to drop while the vaccination rate among the highest risk groups was still very low. But vaccines may still be playing a role in curbing the outbreak and will certainly be vital moving forward. Preliminary data from the CDC, for instance, has found that at-risk people given the first dose of the vaccine have been 14 times less likely to catch monkeypox than those unvaccinated, though it is still too early to confirm the vaccine’s exact effectiveness during this outbreak. Limited data in the past has suggested that the full two doses may be around 85% effective.

Meanwhile, survey data has suggested that high-risk individuals are heeding public health warnings and have changed their behavior to lower the chances of catching monkeypox, such as by having fewer one-night stands or reducing their number of sexual partners. “The slowing growth of the outbreak is likely due to a combination of many factors, including vaccination, behavior change, and possibly increases in infection-acquired immunity among a segment of the sexual networks at highest risk,” the authors wrote.

The CDC expects new cases in the U.S. to continue declining or reach a plateau over the next two to four weeks and to then decline significantly over the months to come. But the most likely scenario for the long-term future is one in which monkeypox lingers on. The report authors expect that these cases will remain concentrated among men who have sex with men (MSM), but they’re not certain about how far the monkeypox virus will ultimately spread among this group.

“We note that low-level transmission could continue indefinitely, and the cumulative number of cases that could occur among MSM is unknown,” they wrote.

Prior to the global outbreaks this year, monkeypox has predominantly been transmitted from animals to humans. But experts elsewhere in the world have feared that the extent of monkeypox in 2022 has made it impossible to fully contain and that it will become a routinely encountered human disease.

Of course, the path of monkeypox’s future isn’t set in stone yet, and there are still many factors that could affect its trajectory. Though unlikely, it is possible that the virus could burn itself out and be locally eliminated in the U.S. in the near future. Conversely, monkeypox could spread widely among other groups and/or in ways outside of having sex. At this point, though, the report authors note that neither scenario above seems to be happening in the U.S. or elsewhere.

Perhaps the silver lining to all this is that this situation could have been much worse. There were two major groups, or clades, of monkeypox viruses known to scientists before 2022 (a third has since been identified, which may have emerged during the outbreak). The more serious clade has had a fatality rate of 10% during past outbreaks, while the strains that have spread around the world this year have had a fatality rate lower than 1% (the U.S. has had two confirmed deaths). And unlike the other most recent emerging disease to circle the globe, covid-19, we had vaccines and antiviral treatments available for monkeypox even before it became widespread.

That said, it’s worth wondering whether more decisive action early on and a better functioning public health system would have been able to stop monkeypox from becoming established as a new human disease. And so long as monkeypox is circulating out there, it’s a public health threat that has to be managed and monitored.

Read original article here

Health

Monkeypox unlikely to be eliminated in the U.S., CDC says

Leave a comment

The monkeypox virus is unlikely to be eliminated from the U.S. in the near future, according to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week.

The CDC, in a technical brief, said the outbreak is slowing as the availability of vaccines has increased, people have become more aware of how to avoid infection, and immunity has likely increased among gay and bisexual men, the group most impacted by the virus.

But low-level transmission of the virus could continue indefinitely among men who have sex with other men, according to the report. The CDC said it does not have a projection of how many total people might get infected by the virus.

The Biden administration declared a public health emergency in August in an effort to ramp up vaccines, testing, treatment and community outreach in an effort to eradicate the virus from the U.S.

The U.S. is trying to contain the largest monkeypox outbreak in the world, with nearly 26,000 cases reported across all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, according to CDC data. At least two people have died from the disease in the U.S., according to the data.

The global monkeypox outbreak, the largest in history, is highly unusual because the virus is circulating widely in countries where it is not normally found. Historically, monkeypox has circulated in remote parts of West and Central Africa. In that context, people normally caught the virus from animals. There was little spread between people.

Monkeypox is now spreading widely between people, mostly through close contact during sex among gay and bisexual men. The disease is rarely fatal, but patients develop lesions resembling blisters in sensitive areas that are extremely painful. In some cases, the pain is so great people require hospitalization and in rare instances people with weak immune systems have died.

The CDC, in its report, said the virus is still spreading primarily among men who have sex with men. But anyone can catch the virus through close contact with someone who is infected or with contaminated materials. Health authorities have confirmed 29 cases of children catching the virus to date, and 78 total pediatric cases are under investigation as of late September.

Though 96% of patients are men, 408 women have caught the virus to date in the U.S. Four pregnant women and one who was breastfeeding have caught monkeypox.

The CDC said the percentage of patients who identify as gay or bisexual men has declined over time, with 75% of people who provided recent sexual history reporting male-to-male contact.

But a large number of cases are missing data on sexual history and more than 90% of infections are among males, according to CDC. The decline in the percentage of cases reporting male-to-male sexual contact is likely due to missing data rather than a change in how the virus is spreading, according to the public health agency.

The CDC said the outbreak will likely remain concentrated among men who have sex with men over the long term, with infections continuing to decline over the coming weeks and dropping significantly over the next several months.

More than 684,000 people have received the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine so far. Earlier this week, the CDC reported preliminary data indicating that the vaccine is providing at least some protection against infection. The vaccination campaign is primarily focused on gay and bisexual men.

The outbreak could start accelerating again if the virus starts spreading widely among the U.S. population through heterosexual networks or contact that doesn’t involve sex, according to CDC. But there is no country in the current global outbreak that has found clear evidence of sustained spread of the virus outside sexual networks of gay and bisexual men, according to the CDC.

The public health agency also warned that the virus could start spreading faster again among people if it becomes established in an animal population in the U.S. The CDC said it is unknown which animals in North America are most susceptible to infection.

In Africa, the virus mostly spread from animals to people. If monkeypox becomes established in animals in the U.S., it would be very difficult to eradicate.

Read original article here

Health

Some officials now say monkeypox elimination unlikely in US

Leave a comment

NEW YORK (AP) — Some U.S. health officials are conceding that monkeypox is probably not going away anytime soon.

The disease’s spread is slowing but the virus is so widespread that elimination is unlikely, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That conclusion was in a recent CDC report, and echoed Friday by Marc Lipsitch, director of science in the agency’s disease-forecasting center.

Lipsitch hesitated to say monkeypox is permanently here to stay, but he said it stands to be a continuing threat for the next few years.

“It’s in many geographic locations within the country” as well as in other countries, Lipsitch told The Associated Press. “There’s no clear path in our mind to complete elimination domestically.”

The virus has mainly spread among gay and bisexual men, though health officials continue to stress that anyone can be infected. It’s important that people at risk take steps to prevent spread and that vaccination efforts continue, Lipsitch said.

The CDC report contained some good news: The U.S. outbreak seems to have peaked in early August. The average number of daily cases being reported — fewer than 150 — is about a third what it was reported in the middle of the summer, and officials expect the decline will continue for at least the next several weeks.

Lipsitch attributed the good news to increasing vaccinations, cautious behavior by people at risk and infection-derived immunity in the highest risk populations.

Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, agreed that it’s unlikely that spread of monkeypox will stop in the U.S. anytime soon, but he said it’s still possible in the long term.

If domestic transmission were stopped, infections may still continue if people catch the virus while traveling internationally, he said. But the declining cases makes it seem like “we’ve turned a real corner.”

“The efforts underway are succeeding, and should be continued, if not intensified,” he said.

With case numbers going down, this is a good time for local health departments to take a new stab at doing intensive contact tracing to try to stop chains of transmission, he said.

Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals, but it wasn’t considered a disease that spreads easily among people until May, when infections emerged in Europe and the U.S.

There have been more than 67,000 cases reported in countries that have not historically seen monkeypox. The U.S. has the most infections of any country — more than 25,600. One U.S. death has been attributed to monkeypox.

More than 97% of U.S. cases are men. The vast majority have been men who reported recent sexual contact with other men.

Though cases have been declining, the proportion of new cases that have information about recent sexual contact is also down, officials said. That’s causing a growing blind spot about how the virus may be spreading, Lipsitch noted.

___

The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Read original article here

Health

CDC warns of severe illnesses from monkeypox as Ohio reports death of a monkeypox patient

Leave a comment



CNN
 — 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new warning to health care providers Thursday about severe illnesses in people with monkeypox.

The alert comes as Ohio reported that an individual with monkeypox has died – the third known death of a patient with monkeypox in the United States.

Ohio listed the death in an update to its online monkeypox outbreak dashboard. No further details were provided, including whether the death was caused by the virus itself or whether other conditions may have contributed.

“CDC is aware of a reported death of an individual who had severe illnesses and tested positive for monkeypox in Ohio,” Kathleen Conley, a spokesperson for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN on Thursday. CNN has reached out to the Ohio Department of Health for more information.

The first US death due to monkeypox was confirmed this month in Los Angeles County. The county public health department and the CDC said the person had a severely weakened immune system and had been hospitalized. No further information will be made public, the department said.

A person in Harris County, Texas, who had monkeypox died in August, but the virus’ role in that death has not been confirmed.

Deaths from monkeypox are extremely rare, and babies, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems are at greater risk. Among more than 67,000 cases reported globally in the current outbreak, there have been 27 deaths, according to the World Health Organization.

More than 25,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in the United States, but recent case trends suggest that the outbreak is slowing in the US.

Falling case numbers might be a reflection of rising numbers of people vaccinated against the virus. This week, the CDC announced that it’s expanding eligibility for the Jynneos monkeypox vaccine to higher-risk people who have not been exposed to the virus.

According to data posted by the CDC on Wednesday, men at high risk for monkeypox because they have sex with other men or because they live with HIV were 14 times more likely to be infected if they were unvaccinated compared with those who were at least two weeks past their first dose of the vaccine.

The CDC said Thursday that some people in the US who were infected with monkeypox during the ongoing outbreak have had “severe manifestations” of the illness, extended hospitalizations or “substantial” health problems.

The agency’s health alert notes that severe monkeypox can happen in anyone, and most people diagnosed during this outbreak have had mild or moderate illness. Most people whose illness has been severe have had HIV with “substantial immunosuppression,” it says.

Some of the severe illnesses have included:

  • Coalescing or necrotic lesions requiring extensive surgical care or amputation of an extremity
  • Lesions in sensitive areas like the mouth, urethra, rectum or vagina that cause severe pain and affect daily activities
  • Bowel lesions with significant swelling, leading to obstruction
  • Lesions causing scarring with “significant” effects in areas like the genitals, bowels or face
  • Involvement of multiple organ systems and associated conditions, such as encephalitis, myocarditis, conjunctivitis and corneal ulcerations

The advisory urges health-care providers to be aware of risk factors for severe monkeypox and says anyone with suspected or confirmed monkeypox should be tested for HIV. Providers should also check whether the person’s immune system may be weakened by another condition or by a medication.

Monkeypox treatment in people who have weakened immune systems should involve stopping any medications that may be affecting the immune system, providing antiretroviral therapy for those with HIV, and possibly using medications such as tecovirimat, known as Tpoxx.

The CDC says people who were exposed to monkeypox through sexual contact should get tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Read original article here