What Is Monkeypox: What Oregonians Need To Know

PORTLAND, OR — While the current surge of new coronavirus is dominating health talk in Oregon, people are also looking at a new threat on the horizon – monkeypox. A single case of monkeypox reported Wednesday in Massachusetts.

Monkeypox, usually contained to central and west Africa, is a rare, potentially serious viral illness that usually begins with flu-like symptoms and swelling of the lymph nodes before progressing to the rest of the body in a rash, or “pox.” Infections can persist for up to four weeks, Massachusetts health officials said in a news release. Officials said the case poses no risk to the general public and the ill person is in good condition.

When there was an outbreak in 2003, which infected a confirmed 18 people in Wisconsin, researchers at Oregon Health Sciences University were involved in the research response.

Mark Slifka, who was with OHSU's Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, helped determine that people who had been immunized against smallpox as children may have maintained some cross-reactive resistance to monkeypox, which meant that people may have had it without presenting any symptoms.

"Therefore, it is possible that some cases of monkeypox went undiscovered or were underreported," Slifka said.

Here are five things Oregon residents need to know about monkeypox:

1. How Is Monkeypox Spread?

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. Individuals can also be infected through contact with infected people, their clothing or bedsheets.

• Related: Monkeypox Case, First In U.S., Confirmed

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 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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.

2. Why Is It Called Monkeypox?

The first case of the disease was found in monkeys kept for research in 1958, according to the CDC. The first human case was reported about a decade later, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Monkeypox is primarily found in central and western African countries, including in Nigeria, where about 450 cases have been reported since 2017, according to the CDC.

3. How Did Monkeypox Get Here?

The Massachusetts man diagnosed with the first U.S. confirmed case this year had recently traveled to Canada. Suspected cases in other parts of the world almost certainly mean more U.S. monkeypox cases will be detected, the CDC warned Wednesday.

“Given that we have seen now confirmed cases out of Portugal, suspected cases out of Spain, we’re seeing this expansion of confirmed and suspect cases globally, we have a sense that no one has their arms around this to know how large and expansive it might be,” Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the CDC’s division of high consequence pathogens and pathology, told STAT, a health news website.

“And given how much travel there is between the United States and Europe, I am very confident we’re going to see cases in the United States,” she said.

Canadian health officials are investigating over a dozen suspected cases, according to CBC News.

In the U.K., where nine cases have been reported, health officials believe there is community spread of the illness.

4. Have There Been Other U.S. Monkeypox Outbreaks?

U.S. monkeypox illnesses are rare, but they have happened. They include two cases last year related to travel from Nigeria, and a 2003 outbreak tied to 47 infected pet prairie dogs imported from Ghana. All the people infected in the 2003 monkeypox outbreak had contact with the animals, according to the CDC.

One thing that is different with the current monkeypox cases is they are appearing in people who haven’t traveled from Africa. Still, U.S. and European health officials stress the risk to humans is very low, The Associated Press reported.

5. Is There A Treatment?

Monkeypox and smallpox symptoms are similar, and the same vaccine that eradicated smallpox around 1950 curbed monkeypox in humans, according to research published in 2005 documenting a re-emergence of monkeypox.

The World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated in 1980, and smallpox vaccines were discontinued, giving “rise to increasing susceptibility to monkeypox virus infection in the human population,” the researchers wrote.

The CDC said there’s no data available on the efficacy of a handful of antiviral drugs to treat monkeypox, though they have been effective in treating similar pox viruses in humans and animals.