The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended clinicians and jurisdictions in the U.S. maintain a heightened index of suspicion for monkeypox (mpox) in patients who have recently been in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or any country sharing a border with it.
CDC issued a Health Alert Network (HAN) Health Update August 7 about the matter; however, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced today (August 14) that mpox has become a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) due to an upsurge in cases in and near the DRC.
Mpox is a disease caused by infection with a virus, also known as monkeypox virus, according to the CDC. Mpox is a zoonotic disease, meaning it can be spread between animals and people. The virus that causes mpox has also been found in small rodents, monkeys, and other mammals that live in Central and West Africa.
Health authorities say that there are two types of mpox: clade I and clade II. The virus can spread to anyone through close personal contact, and is capable of infecting many mammal species, according to the CDC.
Coinciding with the WHO's PHEIC declaration, the CDC released on August 14 its early publication of a One Health investigation of mpox in companion animals such as dogs and cats. As of July 2024, no cases of monkeypox virus (MPXV) infection or mpox disease had been confirmed in common domestic animals during the current global outbreak or any past outbreaks, the researchers said in an article to be published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
State public health laboratories and several commercial laboratories in the U.S. can perform clade-specific testing, sequencing, and/or flagging high-likelihood clade I MPXV samples (e.g., negative for clade II MPXV but positive for orthopoxvirus), the CDC noted.
In the U.S., a vaccine is available and recommended for those with certain risk factors.
For lower-income countries, the WHO's Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus triggered the process for Emergency Use Listing for mpox vaccines, which will accelerate vaccine access for those countries that have not yet issued their own national regulatory approval, WHO said in its statement.
"Mpox, originating in Africa, was neglected there, and later caused a global outbreak in 2022." That PHEIC was declared over in May 2023 after there had been a sustained decline in global cases. The WHO has asked for an initial $15 million to address the current mpox outbreak.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it had been granted $10.4 million in emergency funding from the Africa Union for its mpox response, Reuters reported.
U.S. mpox virus reports are currently updated the first week of each month.
