CDC Issues Warning About Monkeypox-Infected Air-Passenger Traveling Through Atlanta

CDC Issues Warning About Monkeypox-Infected Air-Passenger Traveling Through Atlanta

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a warning that a U.S resident who visited Nigeria before heading home has become the first reported case of monkeypox in the country. The man, who remains unidentified, traveled through Atlanta’s busy airport before returning to Texas.

The CDC says the traveler left Lagos, Nigeria on July 8, arriving in Atlanta on early on July 9. After a layover at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, the traveler continued on to Dallas later on the 9th. The traveler is currently in a Dallas hospital.

CDC investigators have not released a description of the traveler and are working with airline, state and local health officials to contact passengers or others who might have come in contact with the patient during the trip.

Investigators say mask policies put into place during the COVID-19 pandemic likely limited other traveler’s exposure to the virus, which is also a respiratory virus.

Anyone identified as a close contact with this passenger will be monitored for symptoms over the next 21 days.

Local officials indicate that the lone case of monkeypox posed little risk to the public.

“While rare, this case is not a reason for alarm and we do not expect any threat to the general public,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said in a written statement.

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson said city officials had been in communication with county health officials about the case.

“We have confidence in the federal, state and local medical professionals who are working to ensure that this virus is contained and that the patient is treated with the utmost care,” Johnson said in a written statement.

And while it may be the first Texas case, there there was a 2003 monkeypox outbreak in this country.

Monkeypox — so named because it was first identified in laboratory monkeys — occurs mostly in Central and Western Africa, although it caused an outbreak in the United States in 2003 after it spread from imported African rodents to pet prairie dogs, the C.D.C. said.

During that outbreak, 47 confirmed and probable cases of monkeypox were identified in six states, the C.D.C. said. Those who were infected reported symptoms such as fever, headache, muscle aches and rash. No deaths were reported.

Monkeypox is so named because it was first discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in colonies of monkeys kept for research. The first human case of monkeypox was recorded in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, during the campaign to eradicate the far deadlier smallpox in the region. Since then, monkeypox has been reported in humans in other central and western African countries.

However, it must be noted that while symptoms of monkeypox are similar to but milder than the symptoms of smallpox, there are reports that up to one in 10 people die after infection.

Monkeypox begins with fever, headache, muscle aches, and exhaustion. The main difference between symptoms of smallpox and monkeypox is that monkeypox causes lymph nodes to swell (lymphadenopathy) while smallpox does not.

…Within 1 to 3 days (sometimes longer) after the appearance of fever, the patient develops a rash, often beginning on the face then spreading to other parts of the body.

The virus can spread between people through bodily fluids, sores or items contaminated with bodily fluids, but it is more commonly spread through large respiratory droplets. There is one vaccine that is available, which is used for both smallpox and monkeypox (used for researchers who would work with monkeys).

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