LA County Confirms 1st Monkeypox Case As California Total Climbs To 4

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles health officials have confirmed the county's first case of monkeypox, bringing the statewide total to four.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said Thursday morning it confirmed the county's first presumptive case of monkeypox infection. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still has to confirm the county's results.

The Los Angeles County patient is an adult who recently traveled and was a close contact to another case. The person is symptomatic, but is recovering well and was not hospitalized. The adult is isolating from others, health officials said.

The risk of monkeypox in the general population remains very low.

The latest confirmed case comes after the CDC confirmed a third case in Sacramento County, a spokeswoman for Sacramento County told Patch in an email Thursday. The third case was identified through contact tracing following the county's first confirmed case last week, KCRA reported.

Monkeypox symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills and exhaustion. Within up to three days (though sometimes longer) after a fever, the patient develops a rash that often begins on the face and spreads to other parts of the body. A monkeypox infection ranges from five to 21 days from infection to symptoms, and the illness typically lasts two to four weeks, the health department said.

Recent monkeypox cases in the United States have been linked to travel in Europe, which has seen outbreaks. Other states with monkeypox cases include Massachusetts, Florida, New York, Utah, Colorado and Washington state.

Countries including Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, the United States, Israel and Australia have reported more than 500 monkeypox cases, many apparently tied to sexual activity at two recent raves in Europe, The Associated Press reported. No deaths have been reported.

More than 1,400 monkeypox cases and 63 deaths have been recorded in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo and Nigeria, where the disease is endemic, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sequencing has not yet shown any link to the outbreak outside Africa, health officials said.

The World Health Organization has described the epidemic as "containable," and previously proposed stockpiling limited vaccines and drugs to make them equitably available worldwide.

Many questions remain unanswered about what triggered the outbreak outside Africa. There is no evidence that any genetic changes in the virus are responsible, the U.N. health agency has said.

"The first sequencing of the virus shows that the strain is not different from the strains we can find in endemic countries and (this outbreak) is probably due more to a change in human behaviour," said Dr. Sylvie Briand, the organization's director of pandemic and epidemic diseases.

Federal and state health officials are urging health care providers in the U.S. to be on the lookout for patients who have rash illnesses consistent with monkeypox, especially if they have traveled to an area where monkeypox has been reported, or have had close contact with a person suspected of having monkeypox.

The CDC has warned of a potential increased risk of exposure for those who self-identify as men who have sex with men.

Monkeypox, usually contained to central and west Africa, including in Nigeria, where about 450 cases have been reported since 2017. It's a rare, potentially serious viral illness.

There is no proven, safe treatment specifically for monkeypox, though limited evidence available indicates smallpox treatments may be useful. Most patients recover with no treatment.

Monkeypox isn't easily spread; it usually occurs through bites or scratches from rodents and small mammals, preparing wild game, or coming into contact with an infected animal. People can also be infected through contact with infected people, their clothing or bedsheets.

It enters the body the way infections normally do, through breaks in the skin — even microscopic cuts — and through the eyes, nose or mouth, according to the CDC.

Animals can spread it to humans in multiple ways, including through bites and scratches, but also as their meat is being prepared for human consumption. Person-to-person transmission occurs "primarily through large respiratory droplets" that generally can't travel far, according to the CDC.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.