• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Well, It Seems Monkeypox Could Spread Asymptomatically, So What Now?

August 19, 2022 by Deborah Bloomfield

There’s been a worrying trend recently of talking about monkeypox as if it’s a sexually transmitted infection, or worse, a “gay disease” that won’t affect the majority of people. Neither is true, as a new research letter in the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases has made clear.

Advertisement

The letter reports a case of a man in his twenties who came to a California emergency department after a week of rashes across his body: tiny, fluid-filled blisters which had been turning up throughout the previous week.

Doctors found lesions of different stages on his hands, his torso, and back, and even a crusty one on his lip. His penis, testicles, and anus had none, and he had no classic secondary signs of infection like fever or lymph node swelling.

“Results of complete blood count and basic metabolic panel results were unremarkable,” the letter reports, and the patient tested negative for HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and COVID-19. However, when they tested the fluid from a blister on his palm, it came back positive for the monkeypox virus – specifically, the virus clade that has caused so many cases in Europe and the US.

Unlike many of the monkeypox patients seen by health experts over the past few months, the man in the case report had no history of close sexual contact with anybody within the previous three months. In fact, he reported no close indoor activities other than traveling on planes and trains.

Advertisement

“The first lesion appeared ≈14 days after he attended a large, crowded outdoor event at which he had close contact with others, including close dancing, for a few hours,” reports the letter. “He said that many attendees were in sleeveless tops and shorts. He wore pants and a short-sleeved top. He did not notice any skin lesions on anyone present, nor did he notice anyone who seemed sick.”

Not only did nobody at the event seem sick, but – outside of the rash – neither did the patient. According to the review, he experienced no fevers, chills, headaches, cough, fatigue, or anorectal pain – none of the symptoms that have been reported by other infected individuals. 

“This case highlighted the distinctiveness of clinical manifestations as they indicated potential routes of transmission during the 2022 multicountry outbreak of monkeypox,” write the researchers. “His case highlights the potential for spread at such gatherings, which may have implications for epidemic control.”

Advertisement

The case comes hot on the heels of another study, published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, which found positive monkeypox virus PCR results in samples from asymptomatic men who have sex with men. Out of 200 patients, researchers from Bichat–Claude Bernard Hospital in Paris, France, found 13 who tested positive for the virus. Only two went on to develop symptoms.

The findings reveal a surprising – and worrying – possibility that asymptomatic transmission of the monkeypox virus is possible. That means two very important things. Firstly, much more research is needed into how the virus can spread – whether it be through sexual contact, infected items like bedding, or public events. Secondly, the current public health response, which concentrates on vaccinating only those people who have had close contact with a confirmed case, may not be adequate.

“Whether this indicates viral shedding that can lead to transmission is unknown,” the French report concludes. “If so, the practice of ring postexposure vaccination around symptomatic persons with probable or confirmed MPXV infection may not be sufficient to contain spread.”

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Saudi state media companies to start moving from Dubai to Riyadh
  2. Kristen Stewart’s turn as Princess Diana wows Venice
  3. In remote Indian village, teacher turns walls into blackboards to close school gap
  4. Thai central bank chief warns economy remains fragile, exposed to shocks

Source Link: Well, It Seems Monkeypox Could Spread Asymptomatically, So What Now?

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Watch: Rare Footage Captures Freaky Faceless Cusk Eels Lurking On The Deep-Sea Floor
  • Watch This Funky Sea Pig Dancing Its Way Through The Deep Sea, Over 2,300 Meters Below The Surface
  • NASA Lets YouTuber Steve Mould Test His “Weird Chain Theory” In Space
  • The Oldest Stalagmite Ever Dated Was Found In Oklahoma Rocks, Dating Back 289 Million Years
  • 2024’s Great American Eclipse Made Some Birds Behave In Surprising Ways, But Not All Were Fooled
  • “Carter Catastrophe”: The Math Equation That Predicts The End Of Humanity
  • Why Is There No Nobel Prize For Mathematics?
  • These Are The Only Animals Known To Incubate Eggs In Their Stomachs And Give “Birth” Out Their Mouths
  • Constipated? This One Fruit Could Help, Says First-Ever Evidence-Led Diet Guidance
  • NGC 2775: This Galaxy Breaks The Rules Of “Galactic Evolution” And Baffles Astronomers
  • Meet The “Four-Eyed” Hirola, The World’s Most Endangered Antelope With Fewer Than 500 Left
  • The Bizarre 1997 Experiment That Made A Frog Levitate
  • There’s A Very Good Reason Why October 1582 On Your Phone Is Missing 10 Days
  • Skynet-1A: Military Spacecraft Launched 56 Years Ago Has Been Moved By Persons Unknown
  • There’s A Simple Solution To Helping Avoid Erectile Dysfunction (But You’re Not Going To Like It)
  • Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS May Be 10 Billion Years Old, This Rare Spider Is Half-Female, Half-Male Split Down The Middle, And Much More This Week
  • Why Do Trains Not Have Seatbelts? It’s Probably Not What You Think
  • World’s Driest Hot Desert Just Burst Into A Rare And Fleeting Desert Bloom
  • Theoretical Dark Matter Infernos Could Melt The Earth’s Core, Turning It Liquid
  • North America’s Largest Mammal Once Numbered 60 Million – Then Humans Nearly Drove It To Extinction
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version