July 18th 2022
Call or Text Nationwide Commercial Cleaning if your Minneapolis – St. Paul MN business has had a positive case of Monkeypox.
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The Minnesota Department of Health recently identified additional cases of monkeypox virus in Minnesota residents, for a total of six cases.
All of the cases are identified in adults who live in the Twin Cities area. All people with cases thus far have had a history of travel (including domestic travel) or direct contact with someone who traveled recently, but health officials expect that cases due to community spread could be identified soon, as other areas outside of Minnesota have noted spread within their communities. None of the Minnesotans with cases are currently hospitalized and all are receiving medical care and recovering.
While Minnesota’s case numbers are currently low, state health officials believe not all patients with monkeypox have sought testing or assessment by a health care provider and they are concerned that the number of infections could grow rapidly unless people who are at risk for monkeypox take steps to protect themselves, recognize when they may be infected and seek medical care promptly if they are.
The virus is spread by close contact, typically skin-to-skin contact with rash, scabs or body fluids or contact with materials that have been contaminated with rash, scabs or body fluids, such as clothing or bedding, or prolonged face-to-face contact. Monkeypox is less infectious than other diseases like COVID-19, measles, chickenpox and influenza; however, it can be easily spread by contact with the skin lesions.
People with monkeypox are sick for about two to four weeks and can spread the virus until their rash is completely healed, meaning until the scabs fall off and new skin appears.
Monkeypox usually starts with symptoms like fever, headache, sore throat, swollen glands and fatigue, followed by a rash, but not everyone with monkeypox has these symptoms. Some will have only a rash. In some people, sores will start on the tongue or in the mouth.
Anyone can get monkeypox if they have close, sustained contact with someone who is infected with monkeypox. This can include skin-to-skin contact and during sexual activity. In the current global outbreak, there is a high proportion, although not all cases, occurring among people who identify as gay and bisexual men.
The U.S. has failed to contain the outbreak of monkeypox and is “at the cusp” of seeing the virus become endemic, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Driving the news: According to CDC data, there are currently more than 1,800 monkeypox cases in the U.S. and more than 12,500 worldwide.
What they’re saying: “I think the window for getting control of this and containing it probably has closed, and if it hasn’t closed it’s certainly starting to close,” Gottlieb said.
- “We’re probably detecting just a fraction of the actual cases because we had for a very long time a very narrow case definition on who got tested,” he added.
- “By and large, we’re looking in the community of men who have sex with men and STD clinics. So we’re looking there. We’re finding cases there. But it’s a fact that there’s cases outside that community right now. We’re not picking them up because we’re not looking there.”
- “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s thousands of cases right now,” he added of the U.S. case count.
- “We made a lot of the same mistakes we made with COVID with this. Having a narrow case definition, not enough testing early enough, not providing a vaccine in an aggressive fashion. … While it’s not going to explode because it’s harder for the virus to spread, it will be persistent.”
State of play: Last month, New York City and Washington, D.C., began offering limited monkeypox vaccines and both quickly maxed out on appointments.
- New York City opened three mass vaccination sites for monkeypox on Sunday, NBC 4reports.
- New York City health commissioner Ashwin Vasan said at the opening of one of the sites Sunday that the city is “fighting two pandemics at once,” NBC 4 reports.
The big picture: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced on Friday that it has ordered an additional 2.5 million doses of monkeypox vaccines to respond to the outbreak.
- The World Health Organization is expected to meet this week to determine if monkeypox should be declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), its highest alert.