The monkeypox virus has probably infected more than 700 people worldwide, including 21 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
While the overall risk to public health remains low at this time, according to CDC Jennifer McQuiston, the cases are widespread at the community level in the United States, CNBC reported.
“There could be community-wide broadcasting, which is why we want to really step up our surveillance efforts,” McQuiston told reporters during a call Friday.
“We want to really encourage doctors to if they see a rash and worry that it might be the monkey’s smallpox to go ahead and try it,” he said.
In addition, similar to cases seen in other countries, even in the US, there appears to be a higher risk for gay and bisexual men. Of the 17 patients who provided detailed demographic information to the CDC, 16 were identified as men who have had sex with men, McQuiston said.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has identified more than 550 monkeypox infections in 30 countries, with the majority of cases reported in Europe.
The sudden appearance of these cases in several countries indicates that the virus has spread undetected for a long time outside African regions, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a conference recent press.
According to some scientists, the monkeypox virus may have been circulating quietly for years before its sudden appearance around the world, according to the report.
“There may have been undetected transmission for a while,” said Rosamund Lewis, WHO’s technical director for the monkey’s smallpox during a briefing. “What we don’t know is how long it may have been. We don’t know if it’s weeks, months or maybe a couple of years.”
However, laboratory sequencing reveals that the virus’s genetic mutations are “limited” and that “none of them are smoky guns,” virology professor Marc Van Ranst of the University of Leuven told NBC News in Belgium.
Scientists have also been concerned about the spread of the virus mainly in men who have sex with men, even after not being a sexually transmitted disease.
“What probably happened is that an infectious disease endemic to Africa reached a social and sexual network and then was greatly aided by major amplification events such as radishes in Belgium to spread around the world,” Amesh A. Adalja, a senior researcher at The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told CNBC.
“And then, as it is transmitted through close contact in sexual encounters, many of the lesions are being confused with other sexually transmitted infections, which may be delaying the diagnosis,” Adalja added.
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