This comes as some countries have reported their first deaths related to the virus.
The California and Illinois states of the United States of America have both declared states of emergency over growing monkeypox infections.
This comes as some countries have reported their first deaths related to the virus.
According to statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there have been more than 5,800 probable or confirmed cases reported in the US so far. Out of the number, more than 800 have been reported in California alone as of Tuesday, with Illinois contributing an additional 500.
Although the US federal government has resisted declaring a nationwide public health emergency, the World Health Organization had declared the global monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
According to California’s declaration on Tuesday, emergency medical services will be allowed to administer federally approved monkeypox vaccines to a larger pool of residents, as reported by RT.
Governor Gavin Newsom, while declaring the state of emergency said that “California is working urgently across all levels of government to slow the spread of monkeypox, leveraging our robust testing, contact tracing and community partnerships strengthened during the pandemic to ensure that those most at risk are our focus for vaccines, treatment and outreach."
According to the CDC, monkeypox is a poxvirus, a relative of now-eradicated smallpox, that causes blister-like lesions on the skin and can cause flu-like symptoms like headache, fever and respiratory symptoms.
Illness typically lasts between two and four weeks and can range from mild to severe, even being fatal. Several countries recently reported their first monkeypox-related deaths, including India and Spain.
The disease spreads from infected individuals through close skin-to-skin contact and bodily fluids, and can also spread from animals to humans. Gay and bisexual men have been stigmatized because of disproportionate infection rates – but health officials around the world have stressed the disease can affect anyone and is not a sexually transmitted disease.
The US is facing vaccine shortages in the face of what experts fear could become an endemic disease. In late July, the MIT Technology Review found monkeypox in wastewater in California’s San Francisco bay area, indicating that the infection is more widespread in the community than officially reported. Other metropolitan areas across the country have found similar results.
According to the WHO, the first human case of monkeypox was identified in a child in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970. It is endemic in countries in Western and Central Africa, which compose two distinct clades of the virus. It is believed that the Western Africa clade causes less severe disease than the other, endemic to the Congo Basin.