this morning. A second possible case of monkey pox in
the U.S. Is being investigated in new york city. The
new york health department says it will conduct
preliminary test which if posit will be sent to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for
confirmatory testing. The first confirmed case was
reported Tuesday in massachusetts. Doctors there sa
the patient had recently travel back to the U.S. From
Canada. That patient is currently hospitalized at
massachusetts General Hospital is admitted to our
special pathogens program. He is in stable condition
cases have also been reported in France, Italy Swede
spain, Portugal and Canada and the UK. The CDC is
monitoring six people who may have been exposed to the
virus when they sat near an infected traveler who had
symptoms while on a flight from Nigeria to the UK. In
early May, none of those six people have shown any
symptoms of monkeypox joining Morning rush. Now is dr
Joshua Sharfstein Vice Dean for public health practice
and community engagement at the johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health. Dr Sharfstein, thank you so
much for your time. Let's just start with this. Can you
explain what monkeypox is, how it's contracted action
Um It's a virus but it's not of the family that
coronavirus is in. It's more of the family or sort of
the the general type of virus that smallpox is, but
fortunately it's not nearly as deadly as smallpox. Um
it causes an infection with fevers and swollen lymph
nodes that can last a few weeks. Um and a rash which is
why they call it a monkey pox. Because the pox, it
sort of like chickenpox, um you get a rash um, and then
it generally goes away that the type of monkey pox that
is being spread around is not thought to be a
particularly lethal. Um and then there's the question
of how it transmits from one person to another. I
should say there are types of monkeypox that can that
can be lethal. But so far they haven't seen that with
this. Um generally it's transmitted through very close
contact. Um Now, if there were, you know, very easy
transmission, you would expect see a lot more cases
in europe, not just a few cases here and there. So from
what people can tell, it's still pretty hard to
transmit from person to person. Although as we've
learned, we have to be humble in the face of viruses.
And so there'll be a lot of study to figure out maybe
something's changed a little bit with this monkey pox.
But I think because relatively few people have gott
it so far, I think it's going to be important, but not
anything like the covid situation. Well, that is
certainly good to hear. Um in 2019, the FADA approved a
vaccine actually to prevent monkey monkey pox and
smallpox. How effective is that vaccine And is it at
this point worth people reaching out to their doctors
about it or just knowing about it. Yeah, that vaccine
is not easily available at this point, but you're right.
It's not just that there is a vaccine, there are also
treatments that could work. So right now all that is,
you know, good to know. It's sort of like we have a
toolbox, the most important thing is to understand
what's going on to really take great care of the people
who have monkeypox or might have monkeypox and then
kind of take one step at a time. I I don't think
there's gonna be a mass vaccination effort unless
is a real threat to a lot of people. And I think that
most people think the risk of that is very, very low at
this point. So just in general, as far as the threat
goes, you don't put monkeypox anywhere near COVID d
you I do not at this point. I think especially now t
covid is increasing here in this country, but even
before that, seriously, I think this is you know, we
see all the time. Actually, we live in a world with
many different types of viruses. They're constantly
changing. This is why it's so important to invest in
public health. So we can get the best information about
these threats as quickly as possible and we can be as
smart as possible and how to respond