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The CDC is monitoring more than 200 people in 27 states for possible exposure to monkeypox, after they were in contact with a Texan who contracted the rare disease in Nigeria earlier this month.
Monkeypox is a rare but potentially serious viral illness that is characterized by flu-like symptoms such as fever, chills, cold and cough, headache, swelling of the lymph nodes, etc.
Monkeypox can be a nasty illness, which causes a fever, body aches, enlarged lymph nodes and eventually "pox" or painful, fluid-filled blisters on the face, hands and feet. One version of monkeypox is quite deadly and kills up to 10% of people infected.
As the world battle the deadly coronavirus, a rare case of monkeypox was detected in Texas, the US on Friday. According to the initial reports, this was the first such case reported in the state. Speaking to the media, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said, that the patient is currently hospitalized in isolation in Dallas and a team is working with local bodies to connect to the people who were in direct contact with the infected individual.
How Does It Spread?
Monkeypox spreads from person to person via respiratory droplets which contain the virus. According to the CDC, only masks can keep everyone safe from these airborne diseases.
In addition, there's evidence the virus could be transmitting through a new route: sexual contact. "What is even more bizarre is finding cases that appear to have acquired the infection via sexual contact," epidemiologist Mateo Prochazka at the UKHSA wrote on Twitter. "This is a novel route of transmission that will have implications for outbreak response and control."
Could the virus become more transmissible and thus more of global threat?
"Oh yes," Hooper says. "Every time, there's an outbreak — and the more people get infected — the more chances monkeypox has to adapt to people," he says.
In other words, the more time the virus spends inside people, the more time it has to evolve. It could possibly figure out how to spread more quickly between people.
So scientists are keeping a close eye on the virus and outbreaks that occur – especially if the virus appears to change its route of transmission, as may be happening in the current outbreak.
"We didn't think Ebola spread very easily between people," Hooper adds. "And we were all surprised that health-care workers could catch it even though they were wearing protective gear."
