• 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

  • Four Radioactive Wasp Nests Have Been Found At A Nuclear Facility In South Carolina
  • Ancient Burial Practices
  • Why Do Arms And Legs “Fall Asleep”?
  • Anatoli Bugorski: The Man Who Put His Head In A Particle Accelerator And Survived
  • Alpha Centauri A – Our Closest Sun-Like Star – Has A New “Very Strong Candidate” Planet
  • Redditors Claim They Can Smell When Someone Is Pregnant. Is That Really A Thing?
  • New Monster Black Hole 36.3 Billion Times Our Sun May Be “Most Massive” Ever Found
  • An Interstellar Mission To Visit A Black Hole Might Only Take 70 Years, Astrophysicist Says
  • Four Super Rare Barbary Lion Cubs Born At Czech Zoo In Conservation Win
  • NASA’s Perseverance Snaps One Of Sharpest 360° Panoramas On Mars Ever Taken
  • UAP Researchers Search For “Transient Events” In Earth’s Shadow, Finding Unexplained Events
  • Neolithic Cannibals In Spain Ate Their Enemies As A Form Of “Ultimate Elimination”
  • RFK Jr Pulls Millions Of Dollars Of mRNA Vaccine Funding, Citing Misinformation – Here’s What To Know
  • Ride On Board A Red-Footed Booby As It Catches Flying Fish Above The Indian Ocean
  • People Returned To Live In Post-Apocalyptic Pompeii – But Life Was Never The Same
  • Keep An Eye Out For Aurorae This Week – This “Weak” Solar Flare Might Pack A Surprising Punch
  • Are You More Likely To Be Killed By An Elephant Or An Asteroid? Science Now Has The Answer
  • Five Times A Tumor Behaved Downright Weird
  • Apple Snails Can Regrow Their Eyes. Now, Scientists Are Asking: Could We?
  • Why On Earth Did Such Strange Animals Evolve On Madagascar?
  • 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