“But in England, 7 of the 8 cases don't involve recent travel to Africa, suggesting the patients involved in those cases caught the virus in England. On top of that, those individuals haven't had contact with the one patient known to have traveled to Nigeria, the UKHSA reported Tuesday. Together, this data suggests the virus is spreading in the community undetected.
"Presumably this is cryptic spread from an imported case(s)," virologist Angie Rasmussen of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization
tweeted on Monday.
In the U.S., the patient in Massachusetts had not recently traveled to countries where the disease occurs but had visited Canada.
In addition, there's evidence the virus could be spreading 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
tweeted. "This is a novel route of transmission that will have implications for outbreak response and control."
"We are particularly urging men who are gay and bisexual to be aware of any unusual rashes or lesions and to contact a sexual health service without delay," epidemiologist Hopkins said in the UKHSA's statement.
Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are watching the outbreak in Europe closely. "We do have a level of concern that this is very different than what we typically think of from monkeypox," Jennifer McQuiston, a senior CDC official,
told health news site STAT on Tuesday.
In 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
approved the first vaccine for monkeypox, which also protects against smallpox. "This vaccine is also part of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), the nation's largest supply of potentially life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency that is severe enough to cause local supplies to be depleted," the agency said in a news release.”
[...]
“How do you catch it?
Primarily, from an animal bite, scratch or contact with the animal's bodily fluid.
Then the virus can spread to other people through coughing and sneezing or contact with pus from the lesions.
The cases point to possible sexual transmission of this cousin of smallpox — a previously unknown method of spread for monkeypox.
www.gpb.org
May 19