The first case of monkeypox appears to have been detected in Los Angeles County, officials said Thursday morning, June 2.

The result is presumptive, pending confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An adult resident recently traveled, and came in contact with, “a known close contact to a case,” according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

The patient is doing fine, officials said, adding that the person is not hospitalized but is isolated from others.

Health officials said they are performing contact-tracing to identify anyone who was in close proximity to the person, and they are engaged in “post-exposure prevention” efforts for close contacts.

Because monkeypox cases are usually more common in African nations, its appearance in the United States has generated headlines, particularly among a populace weary of the COVID-19 pandemic. But health officials insist monkeypox is far less infectious.

“The risk of monkeypox in the general population is very low,” California State Epidemiologist Dr. Erica Pan said in a statement last week.

At least 19 monkeypox infections have been confirmed in the United States, according to the CDC. Three cases of monkeypox were previously confirmed in Sacramento County in Northern California.

The Los Angeles case, if confirmed, would be the 20th nationally and fourth in California, tying the state with New York for the most in the country.

No deaths have been identified in the U.S.

Monkeypox symptoms in humans are similar to but milder than those of smallpox, beginning with fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes and exhaustion, followed by a rash that often starts on the face and spreads to other parts of the body, the CDC said.

Infectious lesions often form on the body. A person is considered no longer contagious once the lesions have disappeared and a new layer of skin has formed.

The infection spreads through contact with bodily fluids, monkeypox sores or shared items such as bedding or clothing that were contaminated with fluids, county officials said. It can also be transmitted through saliva and sexual contact.

“It’s not a situation where if you’re passing someone in the grocery store, they’re going to be at risk for monkeypox,” the CDC’s Capt. Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, said in a news briefing last month.

Most people with monkeypox have a mild illness that improves without treatment over 2 to 4 weeks, according to the CDC.

The World health Organization said recent outbreaks reported in countries have raised concerns because they have appeared in countries where the virus isn’t known to circulate.

The WHO says nearly 600 cases of monkeypox have been reported in more than 30 countries not usually known to have outbreaks of the unusual disease, but described the epidemic as “containable” and proposed creating a stockpile to equitably share the limited vaccines and drugs available worldwide.

Countries including Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Israel and Australia have reported more than 500 monkeypox cases, many apparently tied to sexual activity at two recent raves in Europe.

Meanwhile, the African continent has reported about three times as many cases this year.

There have been more than 1,400 monkeypox cases and 63 deaths in four countries where the disease is endemic — Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo and Nigeria — according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So far, sequencing has not yet shown any direct link to the outbreak outside Africa, health officials say.

The U.S. has two licensed vaccines for smallpox and monkeypox in the Strategic National Stockpile, 1,000 doses of Jynneos, which uses a weakened live virus and is given in two doses, and ACAM2000, a single shot of a live pox-family vaccinia virus, of which 100 million doses are kept. It is unclear how long protection lasts from prior routine smallpox vaccination, which the U.S. ended in the 1970s.

According to the CDC, monkeypox was first discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in research monkeys. The first human case of monkeypox was recorded in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during a smallpox eradication effort. Since then, monkeypox has been reported in people in several other central and western African countries.

The CDC reported two U.S. cases last year, in Maryland in November and Texas in July. Both patients  recently had traveled to Nigeria. Before that, 47 cases in 2003 in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin were linked to pet prairie dogs that had been housed near imported animals from Ghana.

People who have symptoms of monkeypox, particularly rashes or lesions, should take the following steps, according to county public health officials:

Visit a medical provider for an evaluation;
Cover the area of the rash with clothing;
Wear a mask; and
Avoid skin-to-skin, or close contact with others.

According to the CDC, these steps are vital for anyone who recently traveled to an area where monkeypox cases have been reported. You can find a list on the CDC website.

For more information on monkeypox: click here.

Staff writer John Woolfolk, The Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this report. 

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