U.S. Boosting Monkeypox Testing as Cases Rise

With cases of monkeypox rising in the United States, the Biden administration has started shipping monkeypox tests to commercial laboratories. This is part of the effort to speed up diagnoses and identify infected individuals more quickly.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is sending the tests to various labs across the United States. The list includes Aegis Science, Labcorp, Mayo Clinic Laboratories, Quest Diagnostics, and Sonic Healthcare. The act would expand the American health system's ability to test for the disease significantly, as previously, only public health labs were able to.

U.S. Trying to Avoid Mistakes Made During COVID-19 Outbreak

According to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Americans should be concerned about monkeypox. He added that they have the right tools to fight and treat these cases, and expanding the number of testing locations will make it easier for anyone to get tested.

The Biden Administration expanded testing for the disease for fears of undercounting the cases.

The Hill reports that some public health experts have warned the U.S. that it risks repeating the mistakes made at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. That mistake was not enough testing to detect how widely the virus was actually spreading in the country.

A Washington Post Op-ed by Jennifer Nuzzo of Brown University and Jay Varma of Cornell University pointed out the lack of testing in the United States. However, experts are also saying that this outbreak of monkeypox won't be a repeat of COVID-19. This is mainly because the disease does not spread as easily as COVID-19. While the virus, which affected the entire planet, was airborne, monkeypox spreads through direct contact with rashes, as well as through surfaces like clothes and prolonged face-to-face contact, according to the CDC.

CDC Confirms 142 Cases of Monkeypox as of June 21

While most of the monkeypox cases have been recorded in Europe, the number of cases in the United States has now reached the three-digit mark, with 142 cases as of June 21, according to the Associated Press.

Monkeypox cases have risen around the world as well, as 1,880 infections have been reported in over 30 countries, many of which are countries where the disease is not typically found.

The CDC states that possible symptoms monkeypox include fever, headaches, muscle and back pain, swollen lymph nodes, exhaustion, experiencing the chills, and the most well known of the symptoms, lesions. These lesions would often show up as pustules on the skin. In many cases, it starts out with flu-like symptoms before rashes are seen on the skin, before the lesions develop.

Health officials are also encouraging doctors to consider testing for monkeypox if lesions or rashes are found in patients.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

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