Monkeypox is endemic in Western and Central Africa, where most cases have been found since the virus’s discovery. Reasons behind the current global outbreak are unknown or at least haven’t been made available, says Aaron Glatt, MD, chair of the Department of Medicine at Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital in New York state.īut while some monkeypox questions remain unanswered, the virus is hardly novel. There is also a presumptive case of the virus in Seattle with a male who had recently returned from a country with monkeypox cases, local health officials reported on Monday. People with suspected cases had also recently traveled internationally, but specific locations aren’t being disclosed because of privacy concerns, according to Jennifer McQuiston, DVM, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology. They have tested positive for orthopox, the family of viruses that includes monkeypox and smallpox. The four suspected cases – one in Florida, one in New York City, and two in Utah – were all identified in males. is a male in Massachusetts who had recently traveled to Canada. The strain from West Africa has been behind recent monkeypox cases. There are two strains of the virus: one out of Central Africa, and another from West Africa that is less severe. There is now one confirmed case and four suspected cases of the monkeypox virus – a rare disease closely related to smallpox – in the U.S., according to the CDC.
