Tuesday 7 June 2022 05:58 PM The US already has up to 300 monkeypox cases - nine times official tally of 31, ... trends now
America may already have as many as 300 cases of monkeypox — more than nine times the official tally of 31 — but has missed hundreds due to a lack of testing, an expert warned Monday.
Dr Boghuma Titanji, an infectious diseases expert at Emory University in Georgia, claimed the U.S. likely already has the same number of infections as the UK — which is currently the world's monkeypox hotspot.
But she said the arduous process of checking swabs — which must be sent to one of 74 local labs and then the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for confirmation — was leading to too few being done and many being missed.
Other experts say infections may not be detected because cases can be mild and clear up on their own, leading to patients not coming forward, or get misdiagnosed as a sexually transmitted disease like syphilis.
America's monkeypox cases are mostly among gay and bisexual men and linked to international travel — particularly to Europe, which has spotted about 900 of the 1,000 global cases in 21 countries.
But at least one patient in the U.S. had not recently traveled or being a contact of another known case, suggesting the virus is spreading undetected stateside. Officials at the CDC have not revealed where the patient is based, although it is likely to be either Florida or Pennsylvania.
This week a World Health Organization chief warned the virus — native to West Africa — may have been spreading around the world for years before it was detected after cases multiplied due to unsafe sex at two raves in Europe.
America has now confirmed 31 cases of monkeypox across 12 states and Washington D.C.
Warning there may be hundreds of cases of the tropical disease in the country, Titanji told STAT News: 'The U.S. probably has as many cases as Canada or the UK.
Dr Boghuma Titanji, from Emory University, said U.S. may have as many cases as the UK
'We're just not testing enough to be able to reliably say that there are only 25 cases. I think we need to be testing way more than we're doing.'
Titanji spoke to the publication before the tally was updated to 31 cases across 12 states and Washington D.C.
The UK has detected 302 cases — the most in the world — while Canada has 95 — the fourth highest tally globally, also behind Spain (230) and Portugal (153).
Many monkeypox infections in the current outbreak are beginning with a rash in the genital area, the CDC revealed at a briefing last week.
