By IDSE News Staff
The CDC and Texas Department of State Health Services recently confirmed a case of human monkeypox in a U.S. resident who traveled from Nigeria to the United States.
Monkeypox is a rare but potentially serious viral illness that typically begins with flu-like illness and lymphadenopathy and progresses to a widespread rash on the face and body. Most infections last two to four weeks.
Monkeypox is related to smallpox but causes a milder infection. The CDC laboratory confirmed that the U.S. patient is infected with a strain of monkeypox most commonly seen in parts of West Africa, including Nigeria. Infections with this strain of monkeypox are fatal in about one in 100 people. However, rates can be higher in immunocompromised people, according to the CDC.
The person is currently hospitalized in Dallas.
The CDC is doing a trace-back investigation with the airline and state and local health officials to contact airline passengers and others who may have been in contact with the patient during two flights: Lagos, Nigeria, to Atlanta on July 8, with arrival on July 9; and Atlanta to Dallas on July 9.
Travelers were required to wear masks on the flights and in the U.S. airports because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the agency said the risk for spread of monkeypox through respiratory droplets to others on the planes and in the airports is low. Prolonged, close contact is necessary for human-to-human transmission.
Six cases have been reported in other countries, including Israel, Singapore and the United Kingdom, among travelers returning from Nigeria. The United Kingdom saw several additional monkeypox cases among people who had contact with original cases. The CDC said the U.S. case is not related to those.
Experts have yet to identify the zoonotic source, but it’s thought that African rodents and small mammals play a part in spreading the virus to people and other animals, like monkeys. People become infected through bites or scratches by an animal, while preparing wild game, or having contact with an infected animal or possibly animal products.
Human-to-human transmission also occurs through respiratory droplets or contact with body fluids, the monkeypox sores. The large respiratory droplets used to transmit monkeypox generally cannot travel more than a few feet, so prolonged face-to-face contact is required, the CDC said.
Most monkeypox outbreaks have occurred in Africa. In addition to Nigeria, outbreaks have been reported in nine other countries in Central and West Africa since 1970. Monkeypox also caused a large outbreak in people in the United States in 2003 after the virus spread from imported African rodents to pet prairie dogs.
CDC poxvirus experts have been supporting the investigation and response to Nigeria’s monkeypox flare-ups since 2017 when the disease reemerged in Nigeria after a nearly 40-year stint with no reported cases.
West African monkeypox is associated with milder disease, fewer deaths and limited human-to-human transmission. Human infections with the Central African monkeypox virus clade are typically more severe compared with those with the West African virus clade and have a higher mortality.
Person-to-person spread is well documented for Central African monkeypox virus.
