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Tag: mpox

  • Feds Suspiciously Revive the Name ‘Monkeypox’ After Dropping It in 2022

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    Under our current age of Trump, it’s frankly stranger when the federal government doesn’t do something completely unproductive. The latest bit of pointlessness? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has switched back to using the name “monkeypox”—an outdated label for the disease mpox.

    NPR was the first to report on the name switchback, which appears to have been implemented sometime in the last month. Nearly three years ago, virologists pushed for monkeypox to be retired, both for being potentially stigmatizing and factually inaccurate, since monkeys aren’t the primary hosts of the virus in the wild. HHS confirmed the switch to Gizmodo but offered no elaboration as to why it did so.

    Why the change?

    In November 2022, the World Health Organization officially adopted the label “mpox” to describe the viral disease, following a concerted effort by relevant experts and scientists to retire “monkeypox.” This name was quickly reaffirmed by many health organizations and countries, including the U.S.

    The reasoning was twofold. One, though humans first discovered monkeypox in a group of lab monkeys in the 1950s, we now know that rodents are its predominant animal hosts. Since 2022, the disease has also spread widely between people, causing outbreaks across the globe—another sign of monkeypox’s outdatedness. Though outbreaks have generally lessened in most parts of the world, the disease still causes large surges of illness to this day.

    Secondly, many scientists noted the harmful racial and ethnic connotations of the name. People have long used “monkey” as a racist shorthand for Black or African people, and some have cast monkeypox as strictly an “African” disease (mpox is still most prevalent in parts of Africa, but the global outbreak has clearly illustrated that it doesn’t respect borders).

    Boghuma Titanji, a virus researcher at Emory University originally from Cameroon, recounted to NPR how her attempts to share information about the mpox outbreaks in 2022 quickly led to a pile-on from racist trolls on social media. “Likening me to a monkey, asking me to go back to Africa, where people have sex with monkeys, and being someone who defends gay sex with monkeys. Those were some of the really, really dark messages that I got in my inbox,” she told NPR.

    What’s in a name?

    There is, admittedly, some room for confusion here.

    As it turns out, different organizations are responsible for naming a virus as opposed to the disease it causes. And while most experts and health agencies defer to the WHO’s guidance for a disease’s name, it’s the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) that decides the formal name of the virus.

    Right around the same time that WHO was considering a name change, the ICTV stated that it would not drastically change its labeling of the virus behind mpox. Though the group has been updating its classification of many virus groups lately, it ultimately only added a broader label in front to illustrate its closeness to other similar pox viruses. So its official species name is now Orthopoxvirus monkeypox (if it’s any consolation, many scientists have complained about the ICTV’s virus name updating for other reasons).

    It’s this distinction that HHS may be hanging its hat on in order to support the name switch. An HHS spokesperson told Gizmodo, “Monkeypox is the name of the viral disease caused by the monkeypox virus.”

    To be clear, though, that’s not accurate. Or at least, monkeypox isn’t the name that most every other health agency around the world now uses for the viral disease caused by the monkeypox virus; that’s mpox. That long list also currently includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since the agency (part of HHS) is still using mpox on its webpage about the disease. Since the last update of that page occurred in April 2025, though, it’s probably only a matter of time before that changes as well.

    As for why the federal government is doing this, who honestly knows? Trump and other members of his administration have made it clear that they despise the WHO, to the point of stripping away the funding the U.S. has historically provided to the agency. But that doesn’t really explain why the change is happening now. For all we know, someone got in Trump’s or Health Secretary RFK Jr.’s ear last month and scared them into thinking “mpox” is too woke a term for the U.S. to endorse.

    What we can say for sure is how utterly pointless any of this is.

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    Ed Cara

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  • Congo finally begins mpox vaccinations in a drive to slow outbreaks

    Congo finally begins mpox vaccinations in a drive to slow outbreaks

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    Congolese authorities began vaccination against mpox on Saturday, nearly two months after the disease outbreak that spread from Congo to several African countries and beyond was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization.

    The 265,000 doses donated to Congo by the European Union and the U.S. were rolled out in the eastern city of Goma in North Kivu province, where hospitals and health workers have been overstretched, struggling to contain the new and possibly more infectious strain of mpox.

    Congo, with about 30,000 suspected mpox cases and 859 deaths, accounts for more than 80% of all the cases and 99% of all the deaths reported in Africa this year. All of the Central African nation’s 26 provinces have recorded mpox cases. Officials in Congo previously told CBS News that they’ve struggled to diagnose patients and provide basic care in the vast country of 100 million people, where a fragile, under-resourced healthcare system is also burdened by the stigma associated with the virus. 

    Although most mpox infections and deaths recorded in Congo are in children under age 15, the doses being administered are only meant for adults and will be given to at-risk populations and front-line workers, Health Minister Roger Kamba said this week.

    “Strategies have been put in place by the services in order to vaccinate all targeted personnel,” Muboyayi ChikayaI, the minister’s chief of staff, said as he kicked off the vaccination.

    Congo Mpox
    A health worker attends to an mpox patient, at a treatment center in Munigi, eastern Congo, Aug. 19, 2024.

    Moses Sawasawa / AP


    At least 3 million doses of the vaccine approved for use in children are expected from Japan in the coming days, Kamba said. 

    Mpox, also known as monkeypox, had been spreading mostly undetected for years in Africa before the disease prompted the 2022 global outbreak that saw wealthy countries quickly respond with vaccines from their stockpiles while Africa received only a few doses despite pleas from its governments.

    However, unlike the global outbreak in 2022 that was overwhelmingly focused on gay and bisexual men, mpox in Africa is now being spread via sexual transmission as well as through close contact among children, pregnant women and other vulnerable groups, Dr. Dimie Ogoina, the chair of WHO’s mpox emergency committee, recently told reporters. 

    More than 34,000 suspected cases and 866 deaths from the virus have been recorded across 16 countries in Africa this year. That is a 200% increase compared to the same period last year, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. 

    A lack of diagnostic materials and basic medicines to treat the virus, which can improve survival rates, have also hampered efforts to contain the outbreak, and access to vaccines remains a challenge.

    Congo Mpox
    A health worker attends to a mpox patient, at a treatment centre in Munigi, eastern Congo, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024.

    Moses Sawasawa / AP


    The continent of 1.4 billion people has only secured a commitment for 5.9 million doses of mpox vaccines, expected to be available from October through December, Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa CDC, told reporters last week. Congo remains a priority, he said.

    At the vaccination drive in Goma, Dr Jean Bruno Kibunda, the WHO representative, warned that North Kivu province is at a risk of a major outbreak due to the “promiscuity observed in the camps” for displaced people, as one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis caused by armed violence unfolds there.

    The news of the vaccination program brought relief to many in Congo, especially in hospitals that had been struggling to manage the outbreak. Doctors with several charities working in the country have told CBS News they’re overstretched and short on supplies, even having to use tents and mattresses on the floor of makeshift isolation wards to treat a constant influx of patients. 

    “If everyone could be vaccinated, it would be even better to stop the spread of the disease,” said Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, the medical director of Kavumu Hospital, one of the mpox treatment centers in eastern Congo.

    Eastern Congo has been beset by conflict for years, with more than 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich area near the border with Rwanda. Some have been accused of carrying out mass killings.

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  • Why is Congo struggling to contain mpox?

    Why is Congo struggling to contain mpox?

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    KAVUMU, Congo — Health authorities have struggled to contain outbreaks of mpox in Congo, a huge central African country where a myriad of existing problems makes stemming the spread particularly hard.

    Last month, the World Health Organization declared the outbreaks in Congo and about a dozen other African countries a global health emergency. And in Congo, scientists have identified a new strain of mpox that may spread more easily. It has reached areas where conflict and the displacement of a large number of people have already put health services under pressure.

    Overall, Congo has more than 21,000 of the 25,093 confirmed and suspected mpox cases in Africa this year, according to WHO’s most recent count.

    Yes, Congo is one of the African countries where mpox has been endemic for decades.

    Mpox, once known as monkeypox, comes from the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms such as fever. People with more serious cases can develop skin lesions. More than 720 people in Africa have died in the latest outbreaks, mostly in Congo.

    Mpox is a zoonotic disease, meaning it can spread to humans from infected animals. In the global mpox outbreak of 2022, the virus spread between people primarily through sex and close physical contact.

    In September 2023, mpox spread to Congo’s eastern province of South Kivu; it had previously been seen in the center and far west. Scientists then identified a new form of mpox in South Kivu that may be more infectious.

    The WHO said that from the outbreak in South Kivu, the virus spread among people elsewhere in the country, arriving in neighboring province North Kivu. Those two provinces — some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) from the capital, Kinshasa — face escalating violence, a humanitarian crisis and other issues.

    More than 120 armed groups have been fighting each other and the Congolese army for years in the eastern part of the country over the control of minerals. That has forced millions of people fleeing violence into refugee camps or nearby towns.

    That means mpox is hitting already-stretched health facilities. Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, medical director of the Kavumu hospital in eastern Congo, said it is “truly a challenge” — sometimes treating as many as four times the facility’s capacity for patients.

    With more than 6 million displaced people in the east, authorities and aid agencies were already struggling to provide food and healthcare, while fighting other diseases such as cholera. Many people have no access to soap, clean water or other basics.

    Some eastern Congo communities are out of reach of health clinics — roads are unreliable, and hourslong risky boat trips are sometimes the only means of transport, said Mercy Muthee Lake of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent.

    People can be more susceptible to severe mpox cases because of malnutrition and undiagnosed HIV, she said.

    She also said health workers in eastern Congo have requested more mpox training as medications to treat fever and ease pain run out.

    Health authorities “are up against it because it’s such a complex area,” said Chris Beyrer, of Duke University’s Global Health Institute.

    Africa has no capacity to produce mpox vaccines. Around 250,000 doses have arrived in Congo from the European Union and the United States, and more are expected. Congolese authorities say they need around 3 million vaccines. It will likely be weeks before any vaccines reach people in eastern Congo.

    For now, the vaccine is approved only for adults. There’s limited evidence of how it works in children.

    Vaccines are desperately needed, but they’re just “an additional tool,” said Emmanuel Lampaert, the Congo representative for Doctors Without Borders. The key, Lampaert said, is still identifying cases, isolating patients, and executing grassroots health and education campaigns.

    Local conditions make that trying — Lampaert noted it’s almost impossible to isolate cases among poor, displaced people.

    “Families with six to eight children are living in a hut, which is maybe the space of the bed we are sleeping in,” he said. “So, this is the reality.”

    Unlike the millions of dollars that poured into Congo for Ebola and COVID aid, the response to mpox has been sluggish, many critics say.

    Health experts say the sharp contrast is due to a lack of both funds and international interest.

    “Ebola is the most dangerous virus in the world, and COVID wiped out the world economy,” said professor Ali Bulabula, who works on infectious diseases in the medical department at Congo’s University of Kindu. “While mpox is a public health emergency of international concern, there is a lack of in-depth research and interest in the virus, as it’s still seen as a tropical disease, localized to Africa with no major impact on Western economies.”

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    Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria, and Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa. AP reporter Sam Mednick contributed from Kamituga, Congo.

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    For more news on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

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    The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Mpox

    Mpox

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    Geneva — The mpox outbreak is not another COVID-19, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, because much is already known about the virus and the means to control it. While more research is needed on the Clade 1b strain which prompted the United Nations agency to declare a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), the spread of mpox can be reined in, the WHO’s European director Hans Kluge said.

    In July 2022, the WHO declared a PHEIC over the international outbreak of the less severe Clade 2b strain of mpox, which mostly affected gay and bisexual men. The alarm was lifted in May 2023.

    “Mpox is not the new COVID,” Kluge insisted. “We know how to control mpox and, in the European region, the steps needed to eliminate its transmission altogether,” he told a media briefing in Geneva, via video-link.

    “Two years ago, we controlled mpox in Europe thanks to the direct engagement with the most affected communities,” he said. We put in place robust surveillance; we thoroughly investigated new cases contacts; and we provided sound public health advice. Behavior change, non-discriminatory public health action, and mpox vaccination contributed to controlling the outbreak.”


    Advocates use end of Pride Month to warn about mpox

    02:42

    Kluge said the risk to the general population from the virus was low.

    “Are we going to go in lockdown in the WHO European region, [as if] it’s another COVID-19? The answer is clearly no,” he said.

    Kluge said the predominant route of transmission remained close skin-to-skin contact, but he said it was possible that someone in the acute phase of mpox infection, especially with blisters in the mouth, could transmit the virus to close contacts by droplets, in circumstances such as in the home or in hospitals.

    “The modes of transmission are still a bit unclear. More research is required,” he said.

    WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the agency was not recommending the use of masks.

    “We are not recommending mass vaccination. We are recommending to use vaccines in outbreak settings for the groups who are most at risk,” he added.

    Mpox surge in Central Africa exposes awareness gap
    Internally displaced women listen to Nathalie Kipenzi, a hygiene promoter, during an awareness campaign for mpox, an infectious disease that causes a painful rash, enlarged lymph nodes and fever, at the Muja camp for the internally displaced in Nyiragongo territory, near Goma in North Kivu province, Democratic Republic of Congo, Aug. 19, 2024.

    Arlette Bashizi/REUTERS


    The WHO declared an international health emergency on August 14, concerned by the rise in cases of Clade 1b in the Democratic Republic of Congo and its spread to nearby countries.

    The WHO declaration came after the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the outbreaks of mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) a public health emergency, with more than 500 deaths attributed to the disease, and called for international help to stop it spreading.

    “This is something that should concern us all,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the time. “The potential for further spread within Africa and beyond is very worrying.”

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  • Now that mpox is a global health emergency, will it trigger another pandemic?

    Now that mpox is a global health emergency, will it trigger another pandemic?

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    LONDON — The World Health Organization has declared the ongoing outbreaks of mpox in Congo and elsewhere in Africa to be a global emergency, requiring urgent action to curb the virus’ transmission.

    Sweden has since announced it had found the first case of a new form of mpox previously only seen in Africa in a traveler, while other European health authorities warned more imported cases were likely.

    Here’s a look at mpox and how likely it is to spread further:

    That seems highly unlikely. Pandemics, including the most recent ones of swine flu and COVID-19, are typically sparked by airborne viruses that spread quickly, including by people who may not be showing symptoms.

    Mpox, also known as monkeypox, is spread primarily through close skin-to-skin contact with infected people or their soiled clothes or bedsheets. It often causes visible skin lesions that could make people less likely to be in close contact with others.

    To stay safe, experts advise avoiding close physical contact with someone who has lesions resembling mpox, not sharing their utensils, clothing or bedsheets and maintaining good hygiene like regular hand-washing.

    On Friday, Europe’s Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said that more imported cases of mpox from Africa were “highly likely,” but the chances of local outbreaks in Europe were very low.

    Scientists say the risk to the general population in countries without ongoing mpox outbreaks is low.

    Mpox spreads very slowly unlike the coronavirus. Shortly after the coronavirus was identified in China, the number of cases jumped exponentially from several hundred to several thousand; in a single week in January, the case count increased more than tenfold.

    By March 2020, when WHO described COVID-19 as a pandemic, there were more than 126,000 infections and 4,600 deaths — about three months after the coronavirus was first identified.

    In contrast, it’s taken since 2022 for mpox cases to hit nearly 100,000 infections globally, with about 200 deaths, according to WHO.

    There are vaccines and treatments available for mpox unlike in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “We have what we need to stop mpox,” said Dr. Chris Beyrer, director of Duke University’s Global Health Institute. “This is not the same situation we faced during COVID when there was no vaccine and no antivirals.”

    It’s unclear. The 2022 mpox outbreak in more than 70 countries was slowed within months, thanks largely to vaccination programs and drugs being made available to at-risk populations in rich countries.

    At the moment, the majority of mpox cases are in Africa — and 96% of those cases and deaths are in Congo, one of the world’s poorest countries whose health system has mostly collapsed from the strain of malnutrition, cholera and measles. Although Congolese officials requested 4 million vaccines from donors, it has yet to receive any.

    Despite WHO declaring mpox a global emergency in 2022, Africa got barely any vaccines or treatments.

    Beyrer of Duke University said it was in the world’s interest to invest now in squashing the outbreaks in Africa.

    “We are actually in a good place to get control of this pandemic, but we have to make the decision to prioritize Africa,” he said.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Pakistan’s health ministry confirms a case of mpox but more tests are being done for its variant

    Pakistan’s health ministry confirms a case of mpox but more tests are being done for its variant

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    PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan’s health ministry said Friday it has identified a case of mpox, but sequencing is being done to determine whether it is a new variant, days after the World Health Organization declared the spread of mpox a global health emergency.

    The case, in a man who had recently returned from a Middle Eastern country, is the first in Pakistan this year but the nature of the variant was yet to be determined. The first case was reported on Thursday by authorities in Sweden.

    The ministry in a statement said the man was from Mardan, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.

    It said the ministry has directed officials at border crossing points and airports to ensure strict surveillance and collect samples for medical tests if they see symptoms of the disease in any passenger returning from abroad.

    It was unclear which Middle Eastern country the man had visited, and no cases of the new variant have yet been reported in that region. The United Arab Emirates, however, has had 16 confirmed cases of mpox since 2022, according to the WHO. The UAE is particularly affected by transnational outbreaks given its role as a hub connecting East and West with its long-haul carriers Emirates and Etihad.

    On Wednesday, the WHO said there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths in Africa this year, which already exceed last year’s figures. More than 96% of all cases and deaths have been in Congo.

    The director of public health for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dr. Irshad Roghani, said the person infected with mpox in Pakistan has mild symptoms. “Contact tracing of the affected person has been started and samples of more people are being obtained,” he told The Associated Press.

    Roghani said that since 2022, 300 people have been tested in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, of whom two tested positive last year. This is the first case detected this year.

    ——

    This story has been corrected to say that the health ministry says the sequencing of the case is still being done and it is not yet confirmed as the new variant.

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  • Sweden reports 1st case of more infectious form of mpox first identified in Congo

    Sweden reports 1st case of more infectious form of mpox first identified in Congo

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    LONDON — Swedish health officials said Thursday they have identified the first case of a person with the more infectious form of mpox first seen in eastern Congo, a day after the World Health Organization declared the outbreaks there and elsewhere in Africa to be a global emergency.

    The Swedish public health agency said in a statement the patient recently sought health care in Stockholm.

    “In this case a person has been infected during a stay in the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of (the more infectious mpox),” the agency said.

    Magnus Gisslen, a state epidemiologist with the Swedish health agency, said the person had been treated and given “rules of conduct.”

    “The fact that a patient with mpox is treated in the country does not affect the risk to the general population,” Swedish officials said, adding that experts estimate that risk to be “very low.” They said, however, that occasional imported cases may continue to occur.

    Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of the deadlier form of mpox, which can kill up to 10% of people, in a Congolese mining town that they feared might spread more easily. Mpox mostly spreads via close contact with infected people, including through sex.

    WHO said there have been more than 14,000 cases and 524 deaths in more than a dozen countries across Africa this year, which already exceed last year’s figures.

    So far, more than 96% of all cases and deaths are in a single country — Congo.

    Given the resources in Sweden and other rich countries to stop mpox, scientists suspect that if new outbreaks linked to Congo are to be identified, transmission could be stopped relatively quickly.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Mpox Can Be Fatal for People With Advanced HIV

    Mpox Can Be Fatal for People With Advanced HIV

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    By Cara Murez 

    HealthDay Reporter

    WEDNESDAY, Feb. 22, 2023 (HealthDay News) – The mpox virus — formerly known as monkeypox — often causes severe illness and death in those with advanced HIV infection that is not under control, researchers report.

    What does that mean? All people diagnosed with mpox should also be tested for HIV, the investigators said.

    The international collaboration of scientists also recommends that the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention add this strain of mpox to its list of severe infections considered particularly dangerous to people with advanced HIV disease.

    “Currently, there is a list of fourteen infections which behave differently and are particularly dangerous to immunosuppressed people with advanced HIV infection. These are called ‘AIDS-defining conditions’ by international public health agencies. Clinicians worldwide use this classification to guide their management of people most at risk of dying from these infections,” lead author Chloe Orkin, a professor of HIV medicine at Queen Mary University of London, explained in a university news release.

    The data highlight the fact that mpox remains a significant threat to people with advanced HIV, said Matthew Hodson, executive director of NAM aidsmap.

    “Although mpox is rarely severe for those of us whose HIV is controlled with treatment, the rates of serious illness and mortality as a result of mpox for people with untreated or unsuppressed HIV are worrying,” Hodson said. “This again highlights the urgency of ensuring people with HIV are diagnosed and have secure access to treatment. Routine HIV testing for all people diagnosed with mpox has the potential to reduce mpox-related deaths and advanced HIV disease.”

    The mpox outbreak that spread around the world last year was linked to networks of gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, according to the study.

    Researchers estimated that between 38% and 50% of people diagnosed with mpox in the 2022 outbreak also had HIV. Most, however, were on HIV treatment and living healthy lives, the study noted.

    In this study, clinicians looked at 382 people who had advanced HIV disease and mpox. This included 27 of the 60 people who died of mpox during the outbreak.

    This latest strain of mpox includes widespread necrotizing skin lesions. There are also high rates of severe infections. In some cases, patients have had unusual lung lesions.

    “We describe a severe form of mpox affecting mostly young men who have sex with men and which results in death in 15% of people with advanced HIV,” said study first author Oriol Mitjà, an associate professor of infectious disease and global health at the Fight Infectious Diseases Foundation.

    “When clinicians recognize necrotizing skin lesions and/or lung involvement, they should use a differentiated clinical pathway and an intensified approach,” Mitjà said. “Also, health authorities should prioritize the vaccination of people living with HIV, particularly in countries with low levels of diagnosis or without universal free access to antiretroviral treatment.”

     

    In addition to testing all people with mpox for HIV, all at-risk persons with HIV and immunosuppression should be prioritized for mpox vaccination and antivirals, the researchers said.

    Study findings were published Feb. 21 in The Lancet journal.

    More information

    The World Health Organization has more on mpox.

    SOURCE: Queen Mary University of London, news release, Feb. 21, 2023

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