The monkeypox outbreak has been declared a public health emergency in the United States and in light of this, Anthony Fauci points out that citizens should be careful but still not panic.
The nation’s top infectious diseases expert shared via WTOP News that people don’t yet have to change the way they live in any way but suggested that they should still keep a close eye on the current situation and make sure they change their behaviors as soon as more information is available.
“You never blow off any emerging infection when you don’t know yet where it’s going. You pay attention to it. You follow it. Then you respond to it in an appropriate manner,” Fauci stated.
At this point, over 7,500 people in the US have been infected with Monkeypox.
This disease has been slowly spreading through close contact with others, affecting a variety of population groups including children.
In the United States, 5 kids have contracted the virus in the last month and even more have been exposed in Illinois not too long ago.
Just last week, local health authorities announced that someone who works at a day-care center had tested positive for Monkeypox which means they might have exposed around 40 to 50 others to the virus, many of them being young children.
The administrator of the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District, Julie Pryde, shared with The Washington Post that a number of exposed kids had already been offered vaccines.
Fauci told WTOP News “Does that mean that every parent in the country needs to be terrified that that’s going to happen to their child? Of course not. Don’t brush it off as something we don’t have to pay attention to. But don’t panic about it.”
So how does Monkeypox spread?
As mentioned before, it spreads through skin to skin contact as well as through touching bodily fluids, including respiratory secretions.
However, that’s not all! You can also contract the virus by simply touching surfaces an infected person touched prior, such as light switches, doorknobs, towels, bedding, tabletops and more, as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC has also shared that the main signs of infection are a skin rash that looks like blisters or bumps and which can be painful and itchy as was well as chills, fever, headache, muscle aches and respiratory problems like nasal congestion, sore throat and coughing.
Recovery usually lasts under 2 weeks.
