{"id":218984,"date":"2025-10-17T05:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T05:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/218984\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T05:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T05:02:10","slug":"two-monkeypox-cases-in-california-under-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/218984\/","title":{"rendered":"Two monkeypox cases in California under investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two mpox<\/a> cases in California<\/a> are under investigation as potentially the first instances of local transmission<\/a> of a distinct variant of the virus<\/a> within the United States, health officials have announced.<\/p>\n

The Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services confirmed one case this week, followed by a second similar infection<\/a> reported by Los Angeles County officials. While six previous US cases<\/a> of clade I mpox were linked to international travelers infected abroad, these new diagnoses suggest domestic spread.<\/p>\n

Officials maintain that the risk to the public is low. Both infected people in California were hospitalized, and they are now recovering at home. Officials declined to give other details.<\/p>\n

Long Beach is located in Los Angeles County, but has its own city health department. Investigators there say they have not found a close contact who traveled abroad, nor have they confirmed additional cases. A few of the person’s close contacts have been given a vaccine, said Nora Balanji, the Long Beach department\u2019s communicable disease coordinator.<\/p>\n

\"Both<\/p>\n

Both infected people in California were hospitalized, and they are now recovering at home. (Alamy\/PA)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have any proof that there has been ongoing community transmission,\u201d she said. “It\u2019s something we\u2019re looking into. That\u2019s something we\u2019re concerned about.”<\/p>\n

Mpox \u2014 also known as monkeypox<\/a> \u2014 is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that is in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa.<\/p>\n

Milder symptoms can include fever, chills and body aches. In more serious cases, people can develop lesions on the face, hands, chest and genitals.<\/p>\n

One version of the virus \u2014 called clade II \u2014 was the source of an international health crisis in 2022, when infections escalated in dozens of countries, mostly among men who have sex with men. At one point, the U.S. was averaging close to 500 cases per day.<\/p>\n

The infections were rarely fatal, but many people suffered painful skin lesions for weeks. Those outbreaks waned later that year, thanks in part to a vaccine against mpox made by Jynneos.<\/p>\n

The other version \u2014 known as clade I \u2014 likewise can spread through sex, but also through other forms of contact. In Africa it has infected a broader range of people, including children.<\/p>\n

A newer form of the clade I virus has been widely transmitted in eastern and central Africa. The World Health Organization declared the situation a public health emergency, but last month it said the problem had waned enough that it was no longer an international emergency.<\/p>\n

Still, \u201cit\u2019s concerning if this virus has come here and now is starting to be transmitted from person to person,\u201d said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University.<\/p>\n

The case report comes amid a federal government shutdown and the layoffs of hundreds of employees at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention \u2014 the agency that usually would be involved in responding.<\/p>\n

Balanji said a few CDC experts have been available to talk to her department about the situation. But Schaffner noted that \u201cthe longer the shutdown, the more impaired public health responses are to any outbreaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson referred questions to local health officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two mpox cases in California are under investigation as potentially the first instances of local transmission of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,3335,48,84,47058,20654,44960],"class_list":{"0":"post-218984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-health-officials","13":"tag-long-beach","14":"tag-los-angeles-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}