Following the continued spread of the Monkeypox infectious disease, the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden, has called on “everyone” to show concern in efforts to reduce the spread.
Speaking Sunday at an air base in South Korea just before leaving for Japan, Biden described the situation as something “everyone should be concerned about.”
The president added that US health officials are currently investigating possible treatments and vaccines. reports Reuters.
According to CNN, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently monitoring six people in the country for possible Monkeypox infections after they sat near an infected traveler who had symptoms during a flight from Nigeria. to the UK.
Monkeypox cases
On May 7, 2022, the United Kingdom (UK) government announced that it detected the first Monkeypox infection in an unidentified individual who returned to England from Nigeria.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 12 member states have reported cases of Monkeypox, meaning more cases are expected to be identified with expanded surveillance in non-endemic countries.
WHO latest analysis shows that, as of May 21, 92 laboratory-confirmed and 28 suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported with ongoing investigations, with no associated deaths so far.
In the registry of infections in non-endemic countries, confirmed cases in the UK, Portugal and Spain have doubled from 21 to 30 cases each, while the US and other states have one to five infections each.
The WHO added that the cases reported so far have no established travel links to endemic areas such as Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana (identified only in animals), Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria. , Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.
monkeypox clades
The WHO added that to date, all cases whose samples were confirmed by PCR have been identified as being infected with the West African monkeypox clade.
There are two clades of monkeypox virus: the West African clade and the Congo Basin (Central African) clade.
The West African clade of monkeypox virus infection sometimes leads to severe disease in some people, as the disease is usually self-limited with a documented case fatality rate of about one percent.
The Congo Basin clade, on the other hand, may be as high as 10 percent, as children are also at higher risk, and monkeypox during pregnancy can lead to complications, congenital monkeypox, or stillbirth.