The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Friday that it has taken note of the registration of more than 700 cases of monkeypox worldwide, including 21 in the United States, at a time when investigations indicate that the disease is spreading within the country.
All monkeypox patients in the United States are in recovery or have already recovered, and no deaths from the infection have been reported.
“Some cases have been reported in the United States that we know are related to a known infection,” Jennifer McQuiston, a health center official, told reporters by telephone.
She added, “We also have at least one case in the United States that is not linked to travel and the patient does not know how he was infected.”
Monkeypox is a rare disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans and vice versa. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, chills, fatigue, and a chickenpox-like rash on the hands and face. The infected person remains contagious until all the blisters have crusted over and new skin is formed.
Skin mutations on the body of a young man with monkeypox (archive)
And disease in general Endemic to West and Central AfricaAnd injuries have been recorded in Europe since May, and the number of countries that monitored it on their soil has been increasing since then.
On Friday, Canada published a new death toll of 77. All in the province of Quebec.
Amount of vaccines ‘more than enough’
For his part, Raj Punjabi, an official in the Global Health Security and Biodefense Department at the White House, said that 1,200 vaccines and 100 treatment doses were delivered to American states, which they provided to people who had contact with infected people.
There are currently two licensed vaccines, ACAM2000 and Genius, which were primarily developed to combat smallpox.
Although smallpox was eradicated decades ago, the United States maintains a strategic reserve of vaccines, to be used in the event that this virus is used as a biological weapon.
monkeypox virus
The Genius vaccine is the newer of the two, and causes fewer side effects than ACAM 2000.
“We still have more than enough vaccines,” Don O’Connell of the White House Department of Health and Human Services told reporters.
In late May, the Centers for Disease Control announced that it had 100 million doses of Akam2000 and 1,000 doses of Guinness, but O’Connell said Friday that numbers have changed and declined to reveal the exact numbers for strategic reasons.
The effects of the smallpox vaccine prick on the arms of a couple in Spain
And the Centers for Disease Control approved two antiviral drugs that were used to treat smallpox infections, “Tabox” and “cidofovir.”
“Anyone can get monkeypox,” McQuiston said We carefully monitor the disease which may spread to any group.
As for defining suspected cases, McQuiston explained that “anyone with a rash should have new features” and anyone considered highly suspicious of related travel or close contact.
