The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is monitoring more than 200 people across the country who have potentially been exposed to Monkeypox.
Andrea McCollum, Epidemiologist at the CDC, said that at least one person from Ohio was being monitored for the disease after sharing a flight with someone from Texas who was diagnosed. That person has not show symptoms, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
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Now, 27 states are working with the CDC to review people who shared either of the two flights that person took. One flight was from Lagos, Nigeria to Atlanta and the other was from Atlanta to Dallas on July 9.
“At this time nobody involved in the flights or on the ground in terms of the health care personnel are determined to be at high risk of exposure,” McCollum told News Center 7′s Michael Gordon.
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The CDC said Monkeypox is most commonly reported in central and western African counties. Symptoms of the disease include fever, swollen lymph nodes and a rash that McCollum called “a disseminated rash and it is on most parts of the body.”
McCollum said the disease, which can look like Smallpox, can last 2-4 weeks. She said the disease had an 11 percent fatality rate in Nigeria.
But this has not been the United State’s first experience with Monkeypox. McCollum said there was a small outbreak in 2003.
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McCollum said the disease is not especially transmissible and requires close sustained contact.
“The virus is transmitted through close sustained very direct contact so most of the individuals that we know of particularly in Africa. From very close sustained contact like you would see in a house hold or health care workers very direct care to patients,” McCollum said.
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