A brand new, highly deadly strain of monkeypox has landed on the shores of the United States. Many individuals will likely ignore this warning, having been convinced this is the same strain of the illness that came tot he country in 2022. That version of the virus primarily spread through sexual contact — largely within the LGBTQ community — and had a very low death rate. This strain is vastly different.
According to medical professionals, there are several ways to spread the illness and its death rate is significantly higher. Scientists and doctors have been keeping tabs on this strain from central Africa for quite a bit. Now it’s showing up in various places around the world.
A case of the disease has been confirmed in the northern part of California. The person who contracted the illness had just returned home from a trip to the eastern side of Africa.
A person in California has tested positive for a form of mpox causing a widespread epidemic in Africa, the state’s Department of Public Health reported on Saturday. It is the first known case in the United States.The individual, who was not identified, had recently returned from East Africa. The patient was diagnosed in San Mateo County, just south of San Francisco, and was isolating at home.
A pattern is now beginning to develop. Almost all across the globe, people are seeing cases pop up after folks recently traveled to Africa.
Infections in people returning from Africa, however, have been found in Germany, Sweden, Thailand and the United Kingdom, among other countries. A case in India was reported in a person returning from the United Arab Emirates. In Germany, Sweden, Thailand and India, the virus was transmitted no farther. In the United Kingdom, the infected individual passed mpox to three household contacts.
There is some positive news. The outbreaks were caught before they could spread. However, there’s some bad news too. In Africa, this brand new stage of the illness is growing out of control. As of this writing there have been a total of 57,000 cases reported since January. Over a thousand people have died.
There have been more than 57,000 confirmed or suspected cases since January and nearly 1,200 deaths, many of them children. The World Health Organization declared the epidemic a global emergency in August.
Scientists have been studying this brand new strain of monkeypox as new evidence has cropped up showing human-to-human spread. Here’s some information from a report titled, “Monkeypox virus keeps getting better at spreading among humans.”
Health officials have been using genomic-sequencing tools to track the outbreak. As part of the effort, Mbala and his colleagues sequenced virus samples from infections in Kinshasa. In samples of both the clade Ia and Ib virus, they found a specific pattern of single-letter genetic mutations indicative of the ongoing battle between the human immune system and the virus — a pattern that would be unlikely to appear unless there was sustained human-to-human spread.
If this new strain starts to spread among humans at an accelerated rate, it will make the panic of the coronavirus pandemic look like child’s play. And that illness had a low death rate. How will people react if folks start keeling over from monekypox?
A report from the WHO said there are new ways the illness is making its way from person-to-person.
- Sexual contact
- Bodily fluids
- Lesions on the skin or area like the mouth or throat
- Respiratory particles
- Contaminated objects
Those who are unfamiliar with the disease think the worst part is all those little sores you get on your skin, but that’s just the beginning. The worst part is the excruciating pain. A man who got infected by the illness back in 2022 said he experienced the worst pain in his entire life.
I waited two days for the result, during which I developed the other symptoms of monkeypox: fever, body aches, chills, and sweats. A few days later, on July 14, I got the positive results from the monkeypox test. And then, boom, right after that, I had a second burst of lesions—like stars in the sky—all over my body. For the next few days, I was in excruciating pain—the worst pain of my life. I’ve been in a car wreck. I’ve had sinus surgery four times. I’ve had wisdom teeth out. I’ve had COVID-19 and mono. I’ve broken my hand, and the pain was nothing like this. Doctors put me on gabapentin [a medication used to treat pain from shingles], and I was also on ibuprofen and acetaminophen, but nothing even dented the pain.
The CDC is attempting to prevent panic by saying that it is prepared to act should monkeypox start spreading like wildfire here in America.
The U.S. is also more prepared for an outbreak than it was in 2022. The CDC has instructed doctors to test for mpox and is scanning for both clades at wastewater sites across the country, including some airports. Additionally, the country has an adequate supply of the two-dose Jynneos vaccine, which is available to men who have sex with men and other high-risk groups. The Department of Health and Human Service says two doses of the vaccine or a previous infection should protect against severe illness from clade I.
If you’re the kind of person who prays, now is a good time to petition the Lord.
"*" indicates required fields