Austin Public Health is investigating a possible case of monkeypox in Travis County. The agency said it is awaiting test results from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to confirm the case.
Monkeypox is a rare infection caused by a virus and has a notable rash as its main symptom.
The person who might have contracted monkeypox has not required hospitalization and is isolating at home, according to Austin Public Health. The agency is doing contract tracing and reaching out to people who have been in close contact with this person.
This person had been in close contact with someone who had traveled from out of state and is being tested for the disease.
“While the threat of monkeypox remains low, we recommend that all Travis County residents be aware and seek medical care if you believe you have symptoms of the virus,” said Dr. Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County Health Authority. “While our local health care providers are working with epidemiologists to monitor the virus, the community should continue the hygiene practices we know work such as handwashing and minimizing skin-to-skin contact, especially with those showing rashes or sores.”
The CDC has found at least 173 cases of monkeypox in the U.S, including at least five in Texas. Dallas County has had three cases. Those were in people who had traveled recently from Spain and Mexico. The CDC has not yet recorded a death from monkeypox.
The symptoms of monkeypox
Symptoms for monkeypox include:
- Fever
- Headache
- Muscle aches and backache
- Swollen lymph nodes
- Chills
- Exhaustion
- A rash that can look like pimples or blisters that appears on the face, inside the mouth, and on other parts of the body, like the hands/palms, feet, chest, genitals or anus. The rash goes through different stages before healing completely. This process can take several weeks.
How is monkeypox spread?
The monkeypox virus usually spreads to humans from infected humans or animals, according to the World Health Organization. The virus can be transmitted from person to person through close contact, such as skin-to-skin touch or by touching infected bedding or clothing.
Monkeypox is much more difficult to spread than COVID-19, because it requires direct contact, rather than being spread through the air.
It is spread from people to people in these ways:
- Direct contact with the infectious rash, scabs or bodily fluids.
- Respiratory secretions with face-to-face contact doing activities such as kissing, cuddling or having sex.
- Touching items such as clothing or linens that previously touched the infectious rash or body fluids .
- Pregnant people also can spread the virus to their fetus through the placenta.
People who have monkeypox should avoid close contact with others until a week after the scabs resolve as a precaution, said Rodney E. Rohde, a Texas State University professor of clinical laboratory science who studies infectious diseases such as monkeypox, influenza and COVID-19.
If you do have to care for someone with monkeypox, use personal protective equipment such as a gloves and masks and use good handwashing.
Will monkeypox cause a pandemic?
Monkeypox is unlikely to cause another pandemic, Rohde said, but after their experiences with COVID-19, people might fear another major outbreak.
“We’re very hypersensitive after COVID,” Rohde said. “I actually appreciate that people appreciate what’s happening around them.”
The comparison to smallpox might also scare some people, Rohde said, but the lack of deaths is one of the main differences between monkeypox and diseases such as smallpox or COVID-19.
Most symptoms of monkeypox go away on their own within a few weeks. Infected newborns, small children and people with underlying immune deficiencies could be at risk for more serious symptoms and even death from monkeypox, according to the World Health Organization.
More:WHO ‘not concerned’ monkeypox will become global pandemic; few US cases reported
Another distinguishing point between monkeypox and COVID-19 is the reproductive rate, which shows how many people an infected person is likely to infect. For the highly contagious original variant of coronavirus, the rate in the United States was estimated to be between 1.5 to 6.68, meaning an infected person is likely to infect up to six people. The omicron variant had an estimated reproductive rate of 5.5 to 24, or between five and 24 people infected by one person.
Rohde said the reproductive rate for monkeypox is less than one in America, meaning one infected person is likely to infect one person or no one at all.
Is monkeypox a new thing?
Monkeypox isn’t a new virus, and this isn’t the first time monkeypox has been in the United States. The first confirmed human case of monkeypox was in 1970 in Congo in central Africa. The last U.S. outbreak was in 2003, and it had 47 confirmed and probable cases that originated from a shipment of infected animals from Ghana in western Africa.
Is there any protection for monkeypox?
Monkeypox is a distant cousin to smallpox, so the smallpox vaccine can offer some protection against monkeypox. During the 2003 outbreak, the CDC deployed the smallpox vaccine, increased laboratory testing, tracked potentially infected animals and investigated possible human cases.
The Strategic National Stockpile has enough smallpox vaccine to potentially vaccinate every person in the United States. This is different from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 was a new virus, which meant a vaccine had to be developed. The first known vaccination for COVID-19 in the U.S. happened in December 2020, about a year after COVID-19 was discovered in China.
“We certainly have the capability at the public health level and health care level to handle” these monkeypox cases, Rohde said. “I don’t in any way see this jumping to levels like influenza or COVID, for sure that that would be very unusual.”
Is there a test for monkeypox?
The United States has 74 laboratory Response Network labs that can do PCR tests for monkeypox, which Rohde said is adequate for the current rate of infection. Still, as infectious disease experts keep an eye on the virus, Rohde said it’s important to make sure there are enough testing sites.
“This one certainly raises another reminder of what I talk about all the time, which is the critical need for public health surveillance and diagnostics and things like that ongoing,” Rohde said. “We can’t keep in retrospect, wishing we had things up and going, so this is a good reminder, right as COVID has kind of been at least a little quieter, to wake people up that this needs to be an ongoing, funded, eternal need for the country.”
