Monkeypox: Chance To Become New STD Virus In US!!
Nikki Attkisson | Last Updated : July 25, 2022The course of the disease is unknown, but over 2,400 cases in the United States have been documented as part of an international outbreak that began two months ago.
The emergence of monkeypox in the United States might signal the beginning of a new sexually transmitted illness, while some health authorities believe the virus that produces pimple-like lumps can be stopped before it becomes firmly entrenched.
Monkeypox: Effective Immunizations And Therapies Are Available!
Experts disagree on the disease’s likely future, with some predicting that it is growing so ubiquitous that it may become an established STD like gonorrhea, herpes, and HIV.
But no one is certain, and others believe that tests and immunizations can still prevent the pandemic from spreading. More than 2,800 cases in the United States have been documented as part of an international outbreak that began two months ago.
According to health experts, almost 99 percent of those who reported having intercourse with other men were men.
Officials are unsure how quickly the illness has spread. They only have little information on those who have been diagnosed, and they don’t know how many infected people are unintentionally spreading it.
They also don’t know how effective immunizations and therapies are. One hurdle is that federal health officials lack the power to collect and link data on who has been sick and who has been vaccinated.
With so many unknowns, forecasts for the size of the US epidemic this summer range from 13,000 to more than ten times that amount.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stated that the government’s reaction is strengthening by the day and that vaccination supplies will soon be in short supply.
Monkeypox is prevalent in regions of Africa where individuals have been infected by rodents or small animal bites. However, over 15,000 cases have been documented this year in areas where the disease has not previously been seen.
The vast majority of infections in the United States and Europe have occurred in males who have sex with men, however health experts have emphasized that anybody may get the virus.
It is mostly transmitted by skin-to-skin contact, but it can also be transferred through linens used by someone infected with monkeypox.
Although it has moved across the community like a sexually transmitted illness, experts are on the lookout for additional kinds of dissemination that might exacerbate the outbreak.
There have been multiple instances like this: Officials stated on Friday that they were aware of two toddlers and at least eight women in the United States who had monkeypox.
Fever, bodily pains, chills, weariness, and lumps in various places of the body are all symptoms. Many men have recovered from the sickness, and no one has died in the United States. However, people might be infectious for weeks at a time, and the lesions can be very painful.
When monkeypox first appeared, there was reason to assume that public health professionals would be able to contain it. The characteristic bumps should have made infection detection simple.
Because the virus spreads through close personal contact, officials reasoned that by questioning affected persons and asking who they had been intimate with, they could accurately trace its spread.
Because monkeypox is so uncommon in the United States, many sick individuals — and their physicians — may have misdiagnosed their rashes. Contact tracking was frequently hampered by sick males who claimed they did not remember the names of everyone they had sex with. Some people reported having repeated sexual encounters with strangers.
It didn’t help that local health authorities, already overburdened with Covid-19 and a slew of other infections, suddenly had to find resources to do thorough contact tracing for monkeypox as well.
Several local health professionals have given up hope on contact tracking. Another reason to be optimistic was that the US government already had a vaccine.
With over 15 years as a practicing journalist, Nikki Attkisson found herself at Powdersville Post now after working at several other publications. She is an award-winning journalist with an entrepreneurial spirit and worked as a journalist covering technology, innovation, environmental issues, politics, health etc. Nikki Attkisson has also worked on product development, content strategy, and editorial management for numerous media companies. She began her career at local news stations and worked as a reporter in national newspapers.