Although 54 cases of monkeypox have been reported in the state, Howard County health officials say the disease has not reached Kokomo.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 54 cases in Indiana as of Monday. Those infected with the disease ranged between the ages of 2 and 55, the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) said Friday, though the state had only 45 cases.
Jennifer Sexton, county public health nursing manager, said the county has not received any of the 3,232 doses of the Gynneos vaccine available to health departments across the state.
She said vaccine quotas are used primarily to treat close contacts of monkeypox cases to prevent them from becoming more severe. It is used in people who are at high risk of
IDOH said a booster dose of the vaccine is due soon, and as supplies increase, eligibility will be extended to groups at higher risk of exposure.
The county has monkeypox testing that doctors and hospitals can request if they have a patient they think might have monkeypox, but no doctors have yet requested testing, Sexton said. .
Howard County Health Officer Dr. Emily Bakker says people shouldn’t worry about monkeypox at this time, but they should be careful.
“It’s not really likely that we’ll see the type of spread we’ve seen with COVID, as it’s spread primarily through very close skin-to-skin contact,” she said in an email. could become seriously ill.”
Vaccinations and treatments are available, but they are best used early in the disease, Bakker said. She said she needed to.
According to IDOH, monkeypox is a rare disease caused by infection with the monkeypox virus, which belongs to the same virus family as smallpox.
Symptoms are similar to smallpox but less severe, and monkeypox is rarely fatal. The illness usually begins about 5 to 21 days after exposure with fever, headache, chills, muscle aches, and fatigue.
One to three days, sometimes longer, after the fever develops, the patient develops a rash. The rash may start on the mouth or any part of the body before it spreads.
The disease usually lasts 2 to 4 weeks. People are considered infected until all the scabs on the rash have fallen off and a new layer of skin has formed.
Human-to-human transmission is possible through body fluids, monkeypox wounds, or skin-to-skin contact with contaminated items such as bedding or clothing. Infection can also occur through exposure to respiratory droplets during prolonged face-to-face contact.
