Sacramento monkeypox outbreak swells to 14 after county reports 4 new cases Wednesday
Sacramento County has detected four new probable cases of monkeypox, officials said Wednesday, bringing the total to 14 infections discovered since the outbreak began at the local level in late May.
Six of the 14 probable or confirmed cases have been disclosed in the past two days, with the county reporting two infections Tuesday.
The latest four cases are related to travel to other states within the U.S. and are not linked to other cases within the county, according to a Wednesday news release from the Sacramento County public health office.
“Contact tracing is on-going, risk to the general public remains low,” county health officials wrote.
Sacramento County’s first monkeypox case was announced May 24 in a resident who recently returned from international travel, followed by four additional cases linked to that case via contact tracing.
At least seven of the nine local cases disclosed since then have been connected to domestic travel, according to county health officials.
The exposure source or sources for the two cases disclosed Tuesday was not immediately clear, with county health spokeswoman Samantha Mott saying they remained under investigation.
Before Tuesday, the county had gone 19 days without reporting a new monkeypox case.
The Sacramento County health office in a Friday news release announced that it was “expanding preventative vaccine availability criteria to include MSM (men who have sex with men) and/or transgender (people) at high risk of exposure to monkeypox,” part of a nationwide expansion of resources to curb the outbreak.
“Individuals who meet high-risk criteria may benefit from getting a two-dose monkeypox vaccine as a form of prevention,” county health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye said in a prepared statement Wednesday.
Local health officials had given 113 total doses of the two-dose monkeypox vaccine as of Monday morning, Mott said in an emailed response Tuesday. A recent breakdown of first and second doses was not immediately available; Mott previously said the county had given 47 first doses and 11 second doses as of June 28.
Separately, Quest Diagnostics on Wednesday announced it has begun to offer testing for monkeypox across most of the U.S. The company developed a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test — the same form of testing used to lab test for COVID-19 — that is now available in every state except New York, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a news release.
“Anyone with a rash should talk to their healthcare provider about whether they need to get tested, even if they don’t think they had contact with someone who has monkeypox,” CDC officials wrote. “Healthcare providers can order monkeypox virus testing from Quest as they normally would order other tests.”
Quest will process monkeypox testing at its laboratory in San Juan Capistrano.
The California Department of Public Health, in its most recent update Tuesday, reported 186 probable and confirmed monkeypox cases statewide, up from 141 last Thursday. Monkeypox has been found across several counties in the Bay Area, Southern California and Central Valley.
CDC data updated Tuesday listed 929 total cases across 40 U.S. states plus D.C. and Puerto Rico. The CDC reported New York with the most at 158 cases, followed by California with 150, Illinois with 121 and Florida with 72.
More than 11,000 cases have been confirmed globally across 65 countries, according to CDC numbers updated Wednesday afternoon.
How is monkeypox spread?
Spread of monkeypox is linked to prolonged, skin-to-skin exposure, according to experts.
Symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills and exhaustion. The patient typically develops a rash, often beginning on the face and spreading to other parts of the body, normally about one to three days after fever.
The incubation period is typically one to two weeks but can range up to three weeks, and the illness typically lasts two to four weeks, according to a county news release.
Doctors and public health officials urge residents to practice safe sex. These practices may include abstaining from sex, practicing monogamy and using condoms during sex to limit exposure to the virus.
This story was originally published July 13, 2022 at 3:03 PM.
