FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – The Florida Department of Health is now investigating a second presumptive case of monkeypox.
It’s unclear if the two cases are connected, but the two individuals have been isolated. Officials will continue to figure out if anyone else has been exposed.
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In the meantime, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has put a warning to doctors to look for patients with monkeypox symptoms.
“Anytime something new comes across their desk they push that out,” Dr. Joshua Lenchus said.
Lenchus is the chief medical officer for Broward Health.
When asked if the first patient had been brought to the hospital, Lenchus told reporters he could not reveal that information.
Instead, he said, “I can’t tell you much about the presumptive case, the two other cases they had last week were international travel and they were both US citizens that came back to the country.”
Uniquely, monkeypox is being seen for the first time in people with no clear connection to Western and Central Africa where it had been geographically limited for years.
Now, anyone can be affected, but according to the CDC, many of those currently affected identify as gay and bisexual men, that’s why it wants to raise awareness.
“Pride really kicks off this Friday with the Memorial Day weekend and throughout the rest of the summer after this call we’ll be working with communicators and the agency’s division of HIV prevention and the division of STD prevention,” said Dr. John Brooks, a CDC epidemiologist.
Typically, the disease is spread through prolonged contact, secretions, and bodily fluids.
“So, the lesions will come out if you will and much like chickenpox several weeks they will come through a different phases crust over,” Dr. Lenchus explained.
Dr. Lenchus told CBS4 monkeypox is supposed to be rare. It’s considered much less contagious than the COVID-19 virus and it’s obvious when people get it, so he doesn’t expect this to be like COVID-19 at all.
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“We were learning day by day no one had encountered this before this is something is something we’ve encountered for decades we have good science on it, we have vaccines that we know work,” Lenchus explained.
Besides vaccines antivirals are also available to treat infected patients.
“We still have medications that we can give you, yes absolutely.”
“The situation is very fluid and it’s being monitored,” noted Dr. Michael Sension, the Medical Director of CAN Community Health.
He says they are keeping an eye out for symptoms and warning patients.
“Such as a headache and a new rash or potential pustules or a new outbreak of skin lesions,” he said.
Prevention is much the same as COVID-19 protocols, particularly good hygiene.
Dr. Aileen Marty said there’s no reason to panic.
“Let’s sort of take a breath and realize that this is a zoonotic disease of the kind that has not, historically, spread easily from person to person,” said Florida International University’s infectious disease specialist.
Clusters of monkeypox began being reported globally just over a week ago.
“There are two major clads, we call them clads, of monkeypox. One clad is from the Congo basin area, that clad is very dangerous, that clad we really don’t want to see. Then there’s a clad from West Africa and that’s the one that is circulating,” said Dr. Marty.
Eighty cases have been confirmed worldwide. The first case in the U.S. was confirmed in Massachusetts last week, with the CDC monitoring other suspected cases. Although the disease belongs to the same virus family as smallpox its symptoms are milder.
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“Because smallpox, even though it was eradicated in 1980, has been a weaponizable agent, many governments including the United States kept working on making sure we had antivirals and vaccines if, God forbid, somebody actually used a smallpox weapon,” said Dr. Marty.
