Monkeypox virus may become established as a new sexually transmitted disease in the United States

The epidemic of monkeypox in the United States could represent the dawn of a new sexually transmitted disease, but some health officials have said that the virus that causes acne-like uplift is still contained before it becomes firmly established. It states that it may be.

Experts disagree on the possible routes of the disease. Some people are afraid that it will be so widespread that it is on the verge of becoming a well-established sexually transmitted disease such as gonorrhea, herpes, and HIV.

However, not everyone is really convinced, and some say that testing and vaccines can still stop the outbreak.

To date, more than 2,400 US cases have been reported as part of an international outbreak that occurred two months ago.

Health officials are not sure how fast the virus spread. They have limited information about the people diagnosed and do not know how many infected people unknowingly spread it.

They also don’t know how well vaccines and treatments work. One obstacle: Federal health authorities do not have the authority to collect and connect data on who was infected and who was vaccinated.

With such a huge question mark, predictions about how big the outbreak will be in the United States this summer will vary widely from 13,000 to perhaps more than 10 times that number.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the government’s response is getting stronger day by day and vaccine supplies will soon surge.

“I think we still have the opportunity to contain this,” Warrensky told The Associated Press.

Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, and people are infected by bites from rodents and small animals. It usually does not spread easily among people.

However, this year, more than 15,000 cases have been reported in countries historically free of the disease. In the United States and Europe, the majority of infections occur in men who have sex with men, but health officials emphasize that anyone can catch the virus.

It spreads primarily through skin-to-skin contact, but it can also be transmitted through linen used by people with monkeypox. Although it is moving the population like sexually transmitted diseases, authorities are monitoring other types of spreads that may spread the outbreak.

Symptoms include fever, body aches, chills, malaise, and bumps on parts of the body. The disease is relatively mild in many men and no one has died in the United States, but people can be transmitted for weeks and the lesions can be very painful.

When monkeypox emerged, there was reason to believe that public health authorities could control it.

The obvious ridge should have made it easier to identify the infection. Authorities also believed that interviewing infected people and asking who they were intimate with could ensure that the spread of the virus could be tracked, as the virus spreads through close personal contact.

It wasn’t that easy.

Monkeypox is so rare in the United States that many infected men and their doctors may have the rash due to other causes.

Contact tracing was often hampered by infected men who said they didn’t know the names of everyone who had sex. Some have reported multiple sexual interactions with strangers.

It helps that the local health department, already suffering from COVID-19 and many other illnesses, had to find resources to do intensive contact tracing work on monkeypox. It didn’t become.

Indeed, some local health authorities have given up expecting much from contact tracing.

There was another reason to be optimistic: the US government already had the vaccine. A double-dose regimen called Jynneos was approved in the United States in 2019 and was recommended last year as a tool for monkeypox.

When the outbreak was first confirmed in May, US authorities had only about 2,000 doses available. The government distributed them, but restricted shots to those recently identified by public health investigations as being exposed to the virus.

As more doses became available at the end of last month, the CDC began recommending that shots be provided to those who are aware that they may have been infected.

Demand is outpacing supply, and clinics in some cities are experiencing rapid shortages of vaccines, with health authorities across the country saying they are not enough.

It’s changing, Warensky said. As of this week, the government has distributed over 191,000 doses and is ready to send an additional 160,000. As early as next week, 780,000 doses will be available.

When current demand is met, the government will consider expanding its vaccination efforts.

The CDC believes that 1.5 million American men are considered at high risk of infection.

The test has also expanded. According to Warensky, more than 70,000 people can be tested each week, far exceeding current demand. She added that the government has also launched a campaign to educate doctors and gay and bisexual men about the disease.

Donal Bisanzio, a researcher at RTI International, believes that US health officials can contain the outbreak before it becomes epidemic.

But he also said that wasn’t the end. As Americans infect people in other countries where monkeypox continues to circulate, there will probably be an outburst of new incidents.

Warrensky agrees that such a scenario is likely to occur. “If it’s not included in the world, we’re always at risk of rekindling from travelers,” she said.

Sean Kirnan of the Fairfax County Health Department in Virginia said there is reason to be tentatively optimistic, as the outbreaks have so far been concentrated in one group of men having sex with men. Stated.

Kielnan, head of the department’s infectious disease department, said the spread of the virus to heterosexuals would be a “turning point” that could occur before it was widely recognized.

Dr. Edward Hook III, an emeritus professor of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said the spillover to heterosexuals was only a matter of time.

If monkey sputum becomes endemic to sexually transmitted diseases, it will be another challenge for health departments and physicians who are already struggling to catch up with existing sexually transmitted diseases.

Such jobs have long been underfunded and understaffed, many of which were simply put on hold during the pandemic. Kiernan said HIV and syphilis were prioritized, but addressing common infectious diseases such as chlamydia and gonorrhea was “counting the number of cases, and that’s it.”

Over the years, cases of gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis have increased.

“Overall, doctors do the clumsy job of keeping a sexual history, asking and admitting that a patient is sexual,” Hook said.