Health officials said Thursday that a child has been infected with monkeypox in New York City, the city’s first known pediatric case.
In the more than three months that monkeypox has spread in New York City, the virus has been diagnosed in nearly 3,000 adults, most of them men. City health officials said the child was an “indoor contact” of an adult who had also been infected with smallpox in monkeys. They declined to provide further details.
“There is one minor case of MPV (or monkeypox) in New York City,” the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, said in a written statement. “While we understand the concerns of families, we also know that the overall exposure risk of children in the city remains very low.”
During the current outbreak, monkeypox has spread primarily sexually between men who have sex with men, epidemiologists say.
The virus is spread through direct contact with rash or scabs of someone who is sick with the virus, but can It is also spread by respiratory droplets and through contact with objects such as bed sheets or clothing used by people with monkeypox.
There have been more than 2,888 cases of monkeypox in New York City, with about 50 new cases emerging each day. New York City cases have dropped in recent weeks, in part as a result of a vaccine campaign that has delivered nearly 70,000 doses of the vaccine to active gay and bisexual men. sexually active people, as well as transgender and non-bisexual people.
Doctors and public health experts say children can spread the virus in settings like schools or daycares, but that’s children now more likely to spread smallpox to monkeys through an infected family member. For example, viruses are also not as contagious as coronavirus.
As of August 21, there have been 13 cases of monkeypox in children 10 years of age and younger and four other cases in children aged 11 to 15 nationwide. based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
New York pediatric case revealed on City website on Thursday.
The pediatric case comes as federal officials anticipate a feeling of optimism about the course of the outbreak, with Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the CDC, saying the world “may be turning around.” in the spread of disease. World Health Organization speak on Thursday that global monkeypox cases down 21 percent last week.
“I want to be cautiously optimistic,” Dr Walensky said at a White House news conference, citing the “downward trend” in cases in New York, San Francisco and Chicago. “Weekly, our numbers are still growing. Lower growth rate. But we are still seeing an increase. And of course we’re a very diverse country, and things aren’t even across the country.”
Dr. Walensky also points to the revelations in the study published on friday CDC, found that men who have sex with men changed their sexual behavior because of monkeypox. A survey of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men found that about half said they had cut back on the number of sexual partners and one-time sex sessions. .
“It speaks to the resilience and commitment of this community,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, deputy coordinator for smallpox at the White House. “Advice on how to reduce the risk of smallpox exposure in monkeys is for now, not forever, and is an important part of our public health and public response when we have an emergency.” increase vaccinations.”
Officials acknowledge that there are still patterns regarding how monkeypox vaccines are used around the country. Some health departments, including New York City, have reports of racial disparities in people receiving doses of the vaccine.
Dr. Walensky said that other data her agency released Friday showed that many Americans received the first dose of Jynneos vaccine, the main vaccine the government is using for monkeypox. , was not recorded as a second infection. As of Tuesday, nearly 97 percent of the more than 207,000 doses administered in 19 jurisdictions were the first dose, she said.
“This is a two-dose vaccine,” she said. “And it’s important to get a second dose.”
Some cities have held back on a second dose because they have too few doses to get around, largely because the federal government has mismanaged aspects afterward Initial feedback to explode. The federal government has alleviated supply problems by recently switching to a different injection method, called intradermal injectionUse only a fifth of the initial dose.
According to Robert Fenton, chief White House coordinator, the White House monkeypox coordinator has delivered more than one million vials of the vaccine to states as of Monday.
“We are moving towards having enough vaccine so that everyone in the community at risk gets two doses of the vaccine,” said Mr.
Three-quarters of jurisdictions have switched to a new intradermal injection strategy, with another 20 percent “working hard to move in that direction,” he added.
When asked about reports that some health departments were struggling to get five doses of the drug out of the vials, officials said they were working with states to resolve the issue. Mr. Fenton says some places have received at least four and a half doses in each vial.
States can also order more vaccines if they have used up 85% of the vaccine supply, said Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services. come back. “
