The death of a resident of Los Angeles County, California, in the United States, was attributed to monkeypox, according to the local Department of Public Health said on Monday (12).
The death was the first due to the virus in the country.
The department and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the link and said the person had a severely weakened immune system and was hospitalized. No additional information will be released.
“Severely immunocompromised people who suspect they have smallpox are encouraged to seek medical care and early treatment and remain under the care of a professional during the illness.”
In an interview with CNN , The Doctor. William Schaffner, professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, says that “the person’s weakened immune system has not been able to control the virus. Once it entered your body, the virus multiplied unchecked, and likely spread to various organ systems, causing them to malfunction.”
Smallpox deaths are extremely rare and often affect babies, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems such as HIV. A person in Harris County, Texas, who had monkeypox died last month, but the role of the virus in that death has not been confirmed.
There have been nearly 22,000 probable or confirmed cases of monkeypox reported in the US this year as of Monday, CDC data shows. California has the most cases: 4,300.
Globally, in this outbreak, there have been nearly 58,000 cases and 18 confirmed deaths, which does not yet include the death in the US.
Trends in smallpox cases appear to be leveling off, health officials say, but that should not lead to complacency.
“We continue to see a downward trend in Europe,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week.
“While reported cases in the Americas have also declined in the past week, it is more difficult to draw firm conclusions about the epidemic in that region. Some countries in the Americas continue to report an increasing number of cases, and in some, underreporting is likely due to stigma and discrimination or a lack of information for those who need it most,” continued Tedros.
“A downtrend can be the most dangerous time if it opens the door to complacency,” he warned.
Source: CNN Brasil
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