On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that it had recorded the first cases of monkeypox in U.S. children, a rare deviation from the virus’s standard pathology which has thus far confined itself almost entirely to gay men.
The two children are among more than 2,500 people in the U.S. who have contracted monkeypox, according to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, MD.
According to reports, cases of Monkeypox were overwhelmingly detected in gay men; a small handful worldwide was reported in women and children.
Here’s what Dr. Walensky told The Washington Post in a live interview on July 22:
“We have seen now two cases that have occurred in children. Both of those children are traced back to individuals who come from the men who have sex with men community — the gay men community. And so, when we have seen those cases in children, they have generally been what I call ‘adjacent’ to the community most at risk.”
In a separate report from CBS News, the agency said that both cases are “likely the result of household transmission” and “had no contact with each other.”
“One is a toddler who lives in California, and the other is an infant who is not a resident of the U.S. and was “transiting through” the Washington, D.C. area when the test was done,” as reported by CBS News.
“Young children (<8 years of age), individuals who are pregnant or immunocompromised, and individuals with a history of atopic dermatitis or eczema may be at especially increased risk for severe outcomes from monkeypox disease,” said CDC.
Watch the video below:
If Monkeypox is a sexually transmitted disease, why are kids getting it? pic.twitter.com/mvgSlxZ0Pp
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (@RepMTG) July 23, 2022
More details of this report from ‘Insider’:
Jennifer McQuiston, the CDC’s deputy director of the division of high consequence pathogens, told reporters on a phone call Friday afternoon that one of the kids diagnosed is “an infant” who lives in another country, but who was traveling through Washington, DC with their family when they tested positive for monkeypox.
“The investigations are still in the early phase and ongoing,” she said of both pediatric cases. “So, we don’t have a lot of details on them.”
But McQuiston did suggest that both of the children were close contacts of men who have sex with men.
“MSM-adjacent is maybe not the greatest term, but I think it describes what we’re talking about here,” she said.
While there have been a few monkeypox cases diagnosed in women and children in the US, more than 99% of cases for which demographics are available in the US outbreak so far are among men who have sex with men.
“I don’t think it’s surprising,” she said of the two first pediatric cases diagnosed in the nation. “The social networks that we have as humans mean that we have contact with a lot of different people.”
As of July 21, 2,593 cases had been confirmed in the U.S. New York currently has the highest number of reported cases at 830. Globally, there have been more than 14,000 confirmed cases across 70 countries. The cases include five deaths, each of which involved people in Africa.
“For the moment, the vast majority of cases continue to be reported among men who have sex with men,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ph.D., Director-General of the World Health Organization, said on July 22.
The WHO’s emergency committee met on July 21 to reassess whether the outbreak constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. A decision has not yet been announced. “Regardless of the committee’s recommendation, WHO will continue to do everything we can to support countries to stop transmission and save lives,” Dr. Tedros said.
Sources: TheGatewayPundit, CBS News, Insider, Reuters, CDC
