DH Latest NewsDH NEWSLatest NewsNewsNEWSInternationalNews

US reports its first cases of monkeypox in children

Monkeypox cases have been discovered for the first time in the United States in children. Health officials said that two children in the US received monkeypox diagnoses on Friday, July 23. One of the children is a toddler from California and the other is a newborn who is not a citizen of the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Investigators are looking into how they contracted the illness, but they believe that domestic transmission was the cause.

Although the sickness is prevalent in certain regions of Africa, this year more than 15,000 cases have been documented in nations that have never previously seen the illness. Health experts have emphasised that anybody may get the virus, despite the fact that the vast majority of cases in the US and Europe have occurred among males. There have been at least six instances of monkeypox among children aged 17 and under in Europe. A report of a youngster who was examined at an Amsterdam hospital with roughly 20 reddish-brown lumps all over him was released this week by medical professionals in the Netherlands.

Children have experienced monkeypox infections more often in Africa, and medical professionals have recorded greater percentages of severe cases and infant fatalities.

As per Dr. James Lawler, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, one cause might be the fact that a large number of elderly people had smallpox vaccinations as children, which provided them with some protection against monkeypox. After the illness was eradicated some 40 years ago, smallpox vaccines were no longer administered. Children have not received a smallpox vaccination since that time, and thus would not be protected in the same way against the similar monkeypox virus.

shortlink

Post Your Comments


Back to top button