Commercial trials of monkeypox begin in fear of endemic

As commercial testing of monkeypox becomes more accessible, some local infectious disease experts say that monkeypox may be prevalent in the United States unless the vaccine becomes more widely available. I’m afraid.

Dr. Gary Green, an infectious disease expert at Satter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, said monkeypox is the first human-to-human transmission outside Africa since its discovery in 1958.

“There are so many countries involved and there are currently about 10,000 cases internationally, which shows that this is not a one-off event,” says Green. “It is very likely to be an endemic process.”

Endemic diseases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are always present in the population within the geographic area or have an unusual prevalence.

Mr Green said there was additional concern that monkeypox, a zoonotic virus, could be transmitted between species.

“If this becomes established in local animals, it will stay in the environment and ping pong back and forth from human to human, animal to human,” Green said. “That’s what’s happening. That’s why it’s really prevalent in Africa.”

Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said monkeypox could become endemic unless the vaccine is widely available to high-risk people and people control dangerous behavior. I agreed to be there.

Large commercial laboratories such as Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics are beginning to make monkeypox available to local healthcare providers, which are hampered by current testing restrictions.

According to Green, the good news is that monkeypox doesn’t seem to be that dangerous. He said there were some cases in which people were hospitalized for pain, as far as he knows, but there were no reports of death caused by the virus.

“It’s not smallpox,” Green said. “I consider this a dermatological illness and much more troublesome. It would put a strain on our health care system and put people at risk of a serious illness. I do not think so.”

Monkeypox often manifests as a rash and can look like acne or blisters that appear on other parts of the body such as the face, mouth, hands, feet, chest, genitals, and anus. It may include flu-like symptoms such as fever and low energy.

Neither Green nor Swartzberg are officially classified as one, but states that the majority of monkeypox is as prevalent as sexually transmitted diseases outside Africa. Overt acne and lesions often occur in the genitals or genitals of the body.

Many of the current cases, according to Green, relate to men having sex with men and bisexual men, especially when participating in “social networks with numerous partners, especially anonymous sex.” It is said that there is.

Swartsburg agreed. “It’s not about men who have sex with men, it’s people who have sex with many different partners that increase their risk,” he said. “This is in the population of men who happen to have sex with men, but of course it can spill over, as HIV did in the early 80’s.”

Green and Swartzberg said the virus can also be transmitted by close skin-to-skin contact with lesions and sores. By touching anything that comes in contact with an infectious rash or body fluid, such as clothing or bedding.

Swartzberg pointed out a new study that found that semen, saliva, urine, and feces contained monkeypox virus DNA. The study, which investigated 12 infected monkeypox patients in Barcelona, ​​Spain, suggested the possibility of infection via at least saliva or sexual fluid.

This study emphasized that skin-to-skin contact with infected lesions is the main mode of infection.

Earlier this week, Sonoma County announced 3 cases of suspected monkeypox Detected locally. All three cases involved men having sex with other men. One was related to traveling abroad.

Currently, field tests at the Institute of Public Health can only confirm the presence of the orthopox virus, a genus that includes monkeypox. Health authorities need to send samples to the CDC to confirm monkeypox infection. Two of the three cases returned from the CDC as positive for monkeypox, but the results of the third case are still pending.

But this week, federal health officials announced that commercial testing for monkeypox is now available to healthcare providers. On Wednesday, Quest Diagnostics said it made its own polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test available to providers across the country.

Quest, which played a major role in deploying extensive COVID-19 testing in hospitals and clinics, said it will be able to perform 30,000 tests a week by the end of July. The company also said it plans to make the Ortopox test provided by the CDC available to providers in early August.