What is Monkeypox?
Let’s starts with the symptoms and how it spreads. Please consider What Is Monkeypox? What to Know About Symptoms, Vaccines and How It Spreads
The monkeypox outbreak, which was first detected in the U.K., has now led to more than 15,300 cases across about five dozen countries where it isn’t typically seen, including many in Europe and the Americas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Until recently, monkeypox was rarely found outside certain parts of West and Central Africa. In the U.S., 5,800 cases have been confirmed, federal health officials said.
Monkeypox is a viral disease that circulates mostly among rodents in parts of West and Central Africa. It was first discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in research monkeys, hence its name.
Early symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen glands, chills and exhaustion. The incubation period, the number of days between exposure and the first signs of symptoms, is six to 13 days but it can be longer, according to Sylvie Briand, director of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention at the WHO.
A few days after experiencing the disease’s first symptoms, a chicken-pox-like rash usually appears, beginning on the face then spreading to other parts of the body. The rash eventually forms scabs, which later fall off.
Monkeypox isn’t spread easily among people. Most cases in West and Central Africa arise from contact with an infected animal. People are thought to be contagious only when they have the rash. It can be spread from person to person through close contact, such as touching clothing, bedding or towels, the skin, or through the coughs or sneezes of a person with the monkeypox rash.
While patients recover within a few weeks in most cases, the disease can be deadly. The West African monkeypox that is driving the current outbreak in nonendemic countries is the less severe type.
Monkeypox Caseload in U.S. Approaches World’s Highest
The Wall Street Journal reports Monkeypox Caseload in U.S. Approaches World’s Highest
The U.S. has reported about 3,600 confirmed or suspected monkeypox cases, federal data showed, while vaulting near the top of the list of countries with the most known infections since the onset of the global health emergency.
Data have shown the outbreak is heavily concentrated among men who have sex with men, as the virus exploits social networks among people in close contact. This is already a concern, but spreading more broadly means the potential added challenge of trying to educate and protect a broader population, health experts said.
WHO Declares an Emergency
Despite majority of experts on advisory committee being against a declaration, the WHO Declares an Emergency
The World Health Organization has declared that monkeypox is a public-health emergency of international concern, despite divisions among members of the committee of experts who advise the agency, as global case numbers surpass 16,000.
This is the first time the WHO has declared a global health emergency since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in January 2020. In an unusual move, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, went against the majority view of the emergency committee in making the declaration.
Biden Names Monkeypox Czar
In response to the 4,000 or so cases in the US, Biden Names Monkeypox Czar.
Robert Fenton, a Federal Emergency Management Agency regional administrator and former acting head of the agency, will serve as monkeypox coordinator, the White House said. Demetre Daskalakis, currently director of the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention, would work as his deputy.
The pair will guide the Biden administration’s strategy on monkeypox and help increase the availability of tests, vaccines and treatments, the White House said.
The coordinators will respond “with the urgency that this outbreak warrants” and enable the U.S. to “further accelerate and strengthen its monkeypox response,” said Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to Mr. Biden and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Six is Greater than Nine
In related news, it appears six is greater than nine.
Six members of the advisory panel were in favor of declaring a public-health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), and nine were against that action.
Thus we now have another PHEIC and a new Monkeypox czar.
Tired of It All
Entitled to Fear
Calls to Do Something!
National Awareness Month
Imagine
Meet Your Monkeypox Coordinator
How to Stop Monkeypox
Let’s Test Everybody!
It’s Everywhere!
I am pleased to report not only do we have perpetual war, we also have a perpetual state of emergency.
Carry on.
This post originated at MishTalk.Com.
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