Two children have been diagnosed with monkeypox in the US, health officials said Friday.
One is a toddler in California and the other an infant who is not a US resident but was tested while in Washington, D.C., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
The children were described as being in good health and receiving treatment. How they caught the disease is being investigated, but officials think it was through household transmission.
Other details weren't immediately disclosed.
Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, but this year more than 15,000 cases have been reported in countries that historically don’t see the disease. In the U.S. and Europe, the vast majority of infections have happened in men who have sex with men, though health officials have stressed that anyone can catch the virus.
In addition to the two pediatric cases, health officials said they were aware of at least eight women among the more than 2,800 US cases reported so far.
While the virus has mostly been spreading among men who have sex with men, “I don’t think its surprising that we are occasionally going to see cases” outside that social network, the CDC's Jennifer McQuiston told reporters Friday.
Officials have said the virus can spread through close personal contact, and via towels and bedding. That means it can happen in homes, likely through prolonged or intensive contact, said Dr. James Lawler, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
“People don't crawl on each other's beds unless they are living in the same house or family,” he said.
In Europe, there have been at least six monkeypox cases among kids 17 years old and younger.This week, doctors in the Netherlands published a report of a boy who was seen at an Amsterdam hospital with about 20 red-brown bumps scattered across his body. It was monkeypox, and doctors said they could not determine how he got it.
In Africa, monkeypox infections in children have been more common, and doctors have noted higher proportions of severe cases and deaths in young children.
One reason may be that many older adults were vaccinated against smallpox as kids, likely giving them some protection against the related monkeypox virus, Lawler said. Smallpox vaccinations were discontinued when the disease was eradicated about 40 years ago.
Read more:
India reports first case of monkeypox from Middle East-origin traveler
Also Read
-
German committee recommends administering first doses of monkeypox vaccine
Germany’s vaccine advisory committee said it urgently recommended that the country use all the monkeypox vaccine it has on hand to administer first ... World News -
WHO again mulls declaring monkeypox a global emergency
The World Health Organization is convening its emergency committee to consider for the second time within weeks whether the expanding outbreak of monkeypox should be declared a global crisis World News -
WHO confirms 14,000 cases of monkeypox worldwide, five deaths in Africa
The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 14,000 cases of monkeypox worldwide, with five deaths reported in Africa, Director General Tedros ... World News
