Joe Biden stated on Sunday that the current outbreak of monkeypox should worry “everyone,” and his national security adviser reassured the audience that the US has a “vaccine that is relevant to treating” the infection.
“They haven’t given me the amount of exposure yet,” Biden told reporters during an official visit to South Korea. “But this is something that everyone should be worried about,” he added. “It is a worry and if it were to expand, it would be catastrophic,” the president said visiting the Osan airport.
Biden first mentioned that the government was looking into what vaccines if any, might be sufficient to protect individuals from the illness. However, his national security adviser Jake Sullivan later stated that the US has a “vaccine prepared to be delivered” against the monkeypox virus if needed.
Officials from Federal Centers for Disease Control have earlier noted that patients who are infected with monkeypox, which has a long life span, can be given current smallpox vaccinations to reduce the effects of the disease.
“I’ve been around the street, giving him updates based on the documented inputs we’re obtaining from our medical and health squad and, you know, strolling through it with him what the — what the existing situation today looks like and trying to make sure that he’s trying to track the picture as we gain knowledge about cases both in the United States and everywhere else,” Sullivan said.
COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha of the White House stated he wouldn’t be shocked if “a few additional incidents” surfaced in the coming days. On ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, he stated, “We’ve known about this virus for decades.” “We’ve developed vaccines to combat it.” We’ve developed medicines to combat it.”
Biden’s first comments on the increasing breakout of the unusual virus came a day after a top WHO consultant said the monkeypox appeared to be growing through sexual activity and warned that numbers could keep rising this summer as people are attending festivals and other public gatherings.
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“What tends to happen currently is that it has entered the population as a related to sex form, as a genitalia form, and is being distributed, much like sexually transmitted illnesses,” said WHO expert David Heymann.
By Sunday, public health officials in nine European nations, as well as the United States, Canada, and Australia, had verified roughly 80 cases. A further 50 illnesses were anticipated but not confirmed.
The first instance of the illness was verified in Massachusetts on Wednesday, as per state health officials. That patient had just returned from a trip to Canada. Later this week, a New York City resident tested positive for the virus that causes monkeypox, with the federal Centers for Disease Control still examining if the sickness was prevalent on Saturday.
Extreme symptoms can result in rashes and pus-filled sores on the face, surfaces of the hands, and other parts of the body. Fever, body pains, chills, and weariness are common symptoms for most individuals.
According to the WHO, those with more serious illnesses may develop a rash and lesions on their face and hands, which can spread to other regions of the body. As of Saturday, the World Health Organization reported 92 confirmed cases of monkeypox around the world, with another 28 suspected cases.
The virus is not easily transmitted between humans, although it can be disseminated by contact with bodily fluids, monkeypox blisters, infected clothes or beds, or respiratory secretions during extended face-to-face contact.
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The following are some of the disease’s signs and symptoms:
- A migraine
- Fever with an onset temperature of more than 101.3°F
- Lymphadenopathy is a condition that affects the lymphatic system (swollen lymph nodes)
- Myalgia (muscle and body aches)
- Backache
- The disease asthenia (profound weakness)
- A rash
Health experts have made it clear that monkeypox is more difficult to transmit — and thus contain – than Covid-19.
The US government has undertaken a deal to buy “a freeze-dried variant of the smallpox vaccine [developed for monkeypox], thereby enabling for the first dosages of this form to be produced and billed in 2023 and 2024,” according to Bavarian Nordic, headquartered in Copenhagen.
Scientists discovered the communicable disease in 1958 after two breakouts of a “pox-like” sickness in study monkeys—hence the name: monkeypox. In 1970, a nine-year-old child in a rural section of Congo became the first reported human infection.
A person in New York City is being investigated after testing positive for a virus family includes monkeypox, although it is yet uncertain whether the person has the rare disease. Although the disease is caused by the same virus like smallpox, the diagnoses are less severe. People normally recover without having to be hospitalized within two to four weeks, although the sickness can be fatal in rare cases.
The virus was first discovered in monkeys and almost rarely spreads outside of Africa, so the recent outbreak of cases has health officials worried.
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