CDC plans for increase mokeypox cases following confirmed cases in Alabama

ALABAMA. (WTVM) - The Mobile County Health Department is taking high precautions after being notified of Alabama’s first case of monkeypox in a Mobile County resident Friday afternoon.

Monkeypox is a virus that was initially first isolated from a monkey in Africa in 1958.

Monkeypox starts as a scab that you can locate anywhere on your body. Officials say it’s not a deadly virus but want to make sure these cases are taken care of and not spread throughout the state.

Alabama’s first case of monkeypox was detected in Mobile County Friday. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are 1,814 confirmed cases of monkeypox in the United States, with two of those cases in Alabama and 93 of those in Georgia.

Mobile County Health Department Epidemiologist Dr. Rendi Murphree says monkeypox outbreaks are seen with handling infected animals or getting bitten by an infected animal. She says once that happens, it can spread from person to person through skin-to-skin contact.

“Now we’re seeing that it mostly being transmitted through people dancing on a lot of people in a dance floor may be without their shirts, maybe through anonymous sex, maybe through other types of indictment contact and that’s why this one is looking really different than what we normally see.”

Murphree says the rash can look like pimples or blisters that can appear on the face, inside the mouth or on other parts of your body. She says few people experience symptoms before the rash develops, like fevers, swollen glands, chills, and muscle aches.

The CDC recommends checking your skin regularly and isolating yourself from others. If you have monkeypox, then contact your health provider.

“The rash will take you know three to four weeks sometimes to completely heal before you’re no longer infectious to other people, but you know very few people require hospitalization and almost no one dies.”

Murphree says there are no treatments, especially for monkeypox virus infections, but since it is genetically similar to smallpox, antiviral drugs and vaccines developed to protect against smallpox can be used to prevent and treat monkeypox.

“What we call post-exposure prophylaxis vaccination into people who are exposed to try and try to top transmission and stop disease.”

There are two vaccines licensed by the U.S Food and Drug Administration that are available for preventing monkeypox infections.

For more information on monkeypox, click here.

CDC confirms two cases of monkeypox in Alabama and plans for it to increase

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