(NEW YORK) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued an executive order Friday in response to the growing monekypox outbreak in the state and declared it to be a “disaster emergency.”
“After reviewing the latest data on the monkeypox outbreak in New York State, I am declaring a State Disaster Emergency to strengthen our aggressive ongoing efforts to confront this outbreak,” Gov. Hochul said. “More than one in four monkeypox cases in this country are in New York State, and we need to utilize every tool in our arsenal as we respond. It’s especially important to recognize the ways in which this outbreak is currently having a disproportionate impact on certain at-risk groups. That’s why my team and I are working around the clock to secure more vaccines, expand testing capacity and responsibly educate the public on how to stay safe during this outbreak.”
According to data by the Centers Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New York has the highest reported cases of monkeypox.
There have been 1383 reported cases of monkeypox in New York, according to state data and almost 5,000 in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the executive order will allow the state to respond more quickly to the monkeypox outbreak and enable health care workers to help get more New Yorkers vaccinated.
Hochul’s declaration came a day after monkeypox was considered an “imminent threat” to the public health by New York state’s health commissioner, Dr. Mary Bassett.
Commissioner Barrett said in a statement that the designation meant that “local health departments engaged in response and prevention activities will be able to access additional State reimbursement, after other Federal and State funding sources are maximized.”
Monkeypox is primarily spread from person to person contact through close and physical contact. A fever, muscle ache, chills, headache and fatigue are some of the symptoms. Sores and painful rashes also develop on a person’s body.
Most cases in the U.S. have been reported among the gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men community and related to male-to-male sexual contact. Though health officials have repeatedly stressed that the virus can affect anyone who has close contact with people who have monkeypox. Those with weakened immune systems, pregnant people and children under the age of 8 may be at heightened risk for severe outcomes, according to the CDC.
“Every American should pay attention on monkeypox,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters Thursday. “Monkeypox is not COVID, but it is contagious. It is painful and can be dangerous.”
The World Health Organization declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern last week.
ABC News’ Matt J. Foster and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Amid the latest COVID-19 resurgence sweeping the nation, some top health officials are asking Americans to wear face masks again in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.
Officials such as White House COVID-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky have repeatedly encouraged jurisdictions to use the CDC’s community level COVID-19 map, which seeks to identify the risk level of COVID-19 in communities across the country, to help them decide if they should reimplement mitigation measures.
“Local jurisdictions — cities, counties, states — should make decisions about mask mandates because communities are different and their patterns of transmission are different,” Jha told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz last week. “The CDC recommendation is that when you’re in a high zone … wearing masks indoors is really important and it really will make a difference.”
According to the CDC, a high community level suggests there is a “high potential for healthcare system strain” and a “high level of severe disease.”
More than 60% of Americans are now living in a county considered a “high” community level for COVID-19, where masking in indoor settings is therefore recommended by the CDC for all people, no matter their vaccination status.
But calls from the Biden administration’s COVID-19 team have been largely met with silence from local officials, with most cities and jurisdictions choosing to forgo federal guidance.
Although some cities, like Boston and New York City, have released strong recommendations, urging residents to mask again while indoors, no formal mandates have been announced.
In recent weeks, one major U.S. county — Los Angeles — was vocal about a possible return of masking requirements following a steady increase in COVID-19 infections.
However, on Thursday, county health officials announced that with case and hospital admission rates beginning to drop, the return of masking had been scratched.
“Any indication that the committee would soon be moving to the medium community level would be a good reason to not move forward with universal indoor masking, which is what we are doing today,” Barbara Ferrer, the director of Public Health for Los Angeles County, said at a press conference this week. “We will be pausing and not moving forward at this time … the clock is stopped at the moment.”
Some local officials lauded the decision, including L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.
“Unenforceable mandates don’t work,” Barger wrote in a statement following the health department’s announcement. “I’m hopeful that we will now be able to move on from this heightened focus on masking mandates to what really matters — focusing on promoting the efficacy of vaccines and boosters, improving access to COVID-19 treatments, and continuing to educate our county’s residents on the benefits of masking.”
Ferrer stressed that residents are still strongly encouraged to wear masks in many indoor settings and should the numbers begin to rise again, the county will revisit a possible mandate.
“[BA.5] remains highly infectious, so I would strongly advise that everyone keep their masks on when there’s risk for that spread,” Ferrer said. “We should be very careful.”
Despite public messaging that “COVID-19 is still with us,” no major states or cities have reintroduced formal mandates. Many Americans have returned to their normal lives without a second thought of pandemic restrictions — a reality that has troubled some health experts.
“I’m concerned about what the lack of restrictions looks like right now. The caseload, which is vastly undercounted, is already creeping up from an unacceptably high plateau of daily cases that has remained in place since the end of the original omicron wave,” Maureen Miller, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, told ABC News.
Experts noted that although the U.S. is certainly in a different place now versus the start of the pandemic, periodic use of mitigation measures could still be a way to control the spread of the virus.
“Interventions shouldn’t be all or nothing. They need to be applied in real-time ahead of any surge to help limit transmission in the community and ultimately reduce severe consequences of the virus and limit hospital capacity,” explained John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
Policymakers and public health officials should “apply nuance” and “allow for the introduction of targeted intervention” as they consider possible ways to confront the “very likely” fall and winter surge, Brownstein said.
“Surveillance data, when interpreted correctly, should ultimately be the barometer for decisions on bringing back restrictions. Without proactive public health response, we will ultimately just repeat the mistakes of the past,” he added.
In recent weeks, virus-related hospitalizations and deaths have also started to tick up again, though not with the same intensity as previous surges.
“Clearly the lack of current interventions are contributing to a BA.5 surge,” Brownstein said. “While we are not seeing the level of severe disease of the past, it is still driving increases in severe disease.”
The reality that hundreds of Americans are still dying of COVID-19 every day is not something the public should take lightly, stressed Miller.
“COVID-19 infection is not just like a cold. No cold I know kills 400 people a day,” she said. “With the lack of COVID-19 information from health departments around the country and the blaring message that COVID-19 is over, it will be impossible to convince a fatigued and uninformed public of the need for additional mitigation measures.”
Although there are now many more treatments and tools available to treat Americans should they contract COVID, Miller noted that the simplest and effective tools that were available at the onset of the pandemic remain at the public’s disposal: masking and social distancing.
“We experienced the success of this approach in the past. I am doubtful that we will do so in the future,” she said.
The decision not to enforce mitigation measures will only prolong the pandemic, Miller said.
“Our actions are ensuring that the pandemic phase of COVID-19 will last much longer than it has to,” Miller added.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration is preparing to roll out 171 million newly formulated vaccines this September as part of a $5B effort aimed at trying to blunt the impact of the highly contagious omicron variant.
The effort follows an internal debate among President Joe Biden’s top officials on whether to allow younger Americans to get a fourth shot now or wait until a more effective vaccine is released this fall.
The current vaccine was designed to work against the original strain of COVID. And while it continues to dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalizations and death, its effectiveness has slowly waned as the virus mutated.
As a result, Americans over 50 have already been told to get second booster doses, while younger Americans have been directed to get one additional booster.
Moderna and Pfizer say they now have new formulas of the COVID vaccine that will hopefully hold up better against the omicron variant.
Federal regulators would still need to sign off on the new vaccines. But industry and government officials say they are hopeful Food and Drug Administration will authorize the shots and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will recommend them.
According to two administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, industry officials assured the government that it could deliver the newly formulated shots by September.
At that point, the officials said, the decision was made to hold off on a nationwide rollout of additional boosters for people under age 50.
Overall, the government now has the option to buy 600 million new vaccines that are targeted toward the omicron variant, with plans to deliver 171 million this fall.
Moderna and the government announced Friday a $1.74 billion contract for the manufacture and delivery of 66 million doses and the option to buy another 234 million doses later on.
The government had already agreed to pay $3.2 billion to Pfizer for 105 million doses this fall with the option to buy another 195 million doses later on.
The Biden administration says it’s moved $10 billion around in its current budget to cover the cost of these vaccines and other treatments.
But officials warn that there is a trade-off being made to buy these vaccines so Americans can get them cost-free even without insurance.
According to a statement provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, money has been moved away from testing and ensuring stockpiles of protective gear are ready to go ahead of another pandemic or surge in cases.
(NEW YORK) — A Minnesota woman is sharing her health battle on TikTok, she says, in order to raise awareness and encourage women to advocate for themselves and their health.
Raquel Rodriguez, 25, said doctors first found a cyst on her ovary in 2016 while doing testing to determine why she was experiencing kidney infections so severe she had to be hospitalized.
“They just kind of said, ‘Oh, you have a cyst. We’re not worried about it,'” Rodriguez told Good Morning America, referring to her doctors at the time. “They didn’t tell me the size and they didn’t really tell me much about it at all, so I just kind of moved on and was like, OK, they’re not worried about it.”
Ovarian cysts, fluid-filled sacs that forms on or in the ovaries, can happen monthly in the ovulation process. Most of the cysts are what gynecologists call “functional cysts” that resolve on their own and are typically benign, according to the U.S. Office on Women’s Health.
Rodriguez said over the course of the next several years, she continued to experience intermittent kidney and bladder issues, as well as pain during intercourse.
Though the pain during intercourse was often severe, Rodriguez said she struggled to seek help.
“Me being a teen, I was kind of embarrassed, like, I don’t know if this is normal,” Rodriguez said, adding that after a negative experience with a male emergency room doctor, whom she said she felt undermined her pain, she never sought help for the pain again.
Even though Rodriguez said she continued to experience symptoms such as continued pain and frequent urination, it was only this past year that she said she began to notice more physical changes, including extreme bloating.
“I kind of took it into my own hands to do as much research as possible,” she said. “I really started to dig and look at Reddit threads and talk to other women that had the same thing, and then I really started to advocate for myself.”
Rodriguez said she wanted to be “as educated as possible” about what was going on with her body because the previous times she sought medical care for her symptoms, she “wasn’t taken seriously.”
Through her research, Rodriguez said she assumed it was her cyst that was growing and went to a midwife, noting, “I thought they would listen to me better than anyone else had.”
The midwife she saw ordered an emergency ultrasound with a doctor that same day, according to Rodriguez. On the ultrasound, a cyst was found that extended from Rodriguez’s pubic bone to her sternum.
“She said, ‘I’ve never, ever in my life seen something this big before,'” Rodriguez said of the reaction of the doctor who performed the ultrasound. “I remember after walking out of the appointment, I called my mom immediately and told her, and I called my sister and told her, and everyone was really excited because we’d dealt with this for so long. I was really, really relieved.”
In June, on her 25th birthday, Rodriguez underwent a two-hour surgery to remove the cyst, which weighed 10 pounds and carried more than four liters of fluid.
“The first thing I noticed after surgery was not having to pee right away. I could drink a glass of water and not have to go pee immediately,” she said. “That night after the surgery, I looked down at my stomach and it looked like it was sunken in, which was super weird.”
Rodriguez’s surgeon, Dr. Adrienne Mallen, a gynecologic oncology specialist, said the cyst was large enough that it looked like Rodriguez was carrying a full-term pregnancy.
“The abdominal cavity, I tell people it’s like thinking of the inside of a beach ball. It’s easy to hide growths,” Mallen said. “The body is pretty adaptive, so it can be very easy to not notice something in that area, and sometimes it’s not noticed until it comes out of what we refer to as the pelvis, especially in women’s bodies.”
Mallen said that because there is no common way to check women’s ovaries, ovarian cysts can often go undetected.
“The best test we have to determine if there’s growth is a pelvic examination with your doctor,” Mallen said, adding that ultrasounds are then used to help determine if a cyst is benign. “We don’t have a standard test that you can get to check your ovaries, it’s only if you’re having a problem.”
Though ovarian cysts affect millions of women each year, only around 5% to 10% of women, like Rodriguez, have cases severe enough to require surgery to remove an ovarian cyst, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“I tell people to just focus on body awareness so they can feel empowered because they know their body well,” Mallen said, adding of her own patient, “Raquel was a great advocate for herself and made sure she found a team that was listening to her.”
Ovarian cysts — which can be caused by hormonal changes, endometriosis, pregnancy and severe pelvic infections — often cause no symptoms at all.
If an ovarian cyst does cause symptoms, they may include bloating, pressure or pain near where the cyst is located. Symptoms of a ruptured ovarian cyst may include dizziness, nausea, vomiting, bleeding and intense pelvic or abdominal pain on the side of the body where the cyst is located, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
Over the past year, as Rodriguez got answers herself, she began to share her health journey on TikTok to help raise awareness about ovarian cysts and women’s health.
“I wished I had been a bigger advocate for myself because I felt had I been a bigger advocate, I would have gotten the help I needed back when this first started,” she said. “And I really wanted people to understand that women do go through a lot, and there are a lot of things that people go through that we don’t talk about.”
Rodriguez said that as she has shared her journey, she has been surprised both by the number of people who do not know about ovarian cysts, and the number of people who have messaged her thanking her for speaking out.
She said that as she continues to recover and improve, she has also been surprised to find herself with a platform to help empower women when it comes to their health.
“Women are dismissed so often and it is not really talked about,” Rodriguez said. “I realized just how strong I was getting through this surgery, advocating for myself, and then being able to share my journey with other people. It has really made me feel empowered.
(ALABANY, N.Y.) — New York state’s health commissioner declared monkeypox an “imminent threat to public health” on Thursday amid a rapid increase in cases.
The declaration means that “local health departments engaged in response and prevention activities will be able to access additional State reimbursement, after other Federal and State funding sources are maximized,” Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said in a statement.
The United States has one of the highest levels of monkeypox in the world, with over 4,600 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New York has the highest number of cases out of any state reporting those figures, CDC data shows.
There are 1,341 confirmed monkeypox cases in New York as of Thursday, according to state data.
San Francisco declared monkeypox a public health emergency on Thursday, effective Aug. 1, which will also help expedite resources to better respond to the “rapidly rising cases,” city officials said. The city has reported 261 cases of monkeypox.
“We need to be prepared and this declaration will allow us to serve the city better,” San Francisco Department of Public Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax said in a statement. “Our COVID-19 response has taught us that it is imperative that we mobilize city resources. The declaration helps us ensure we have all the tools available to augment our outreach, testing and treatment, especially to the LGBTQ+ [community] who remain at highest risk for monkeypox.”
The Biden administration continues to weigh whether monkeypox should be declared a public health emergency, federal health officials said on Thursday.
“We continue to monitor the response throughout the country on monkeypox,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters Thursday.
“We will weigh any decision on declaring a public health emergency based on the response we’re seeing throughout the country. The bottom line is: We need to stay ahead of this and be able to end this outbreak,” he continued.
Last week, the World Health Organization declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Globally, more than 20,000 cases have been reported in over 75 countries, including in dozens that have not historically reported monkeypox cases.
U.S. health officials have warned for weeks that the number of monkeypox cases would likely increase nationwide, as the government ramps up testing capacity and surveillance.
“We know monkeypox symptoms usually start within three weeks of exposure to the virus, so we anticipate we may see an increase in cases throughout the month of July and into August,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a press briefing earlier this month.
Monkeypox is primarily spread through close, physical contact between people. Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches. Patients can develop a rash and lesions that often begin on the face before spreading to the rest of the body.
Most cases in the U.S. have been reported among the gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men community and related to male-to-male sexual contact. Though health officials have repeatedly stressed that the virus can affect anyone who has close contact with people who have monkeypox. Those with weakened immune systems, pregnant people and children under the age of 8 may be at heightened risk for severe outcomes, according to the CDC.
“Every American should pay attention on monkeypox,” Becerra said. “Monkeypox is not COVID, but it is contagious. It is painful and can be dangerous.”
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — With new cases of monkeypox emerging rapidly across the country, the Biden administration is weighing whether to declare the growing outbreak a public health emergency, federal health officials said on Thursday.
“We continue to monitor the response throughout the country on monkeypox,” Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra said at a briefing Thursday. “We will weigh any decision on declaring a public health emergency based on the response we’re seeing throughout the country. The bottom line is: we need to stay ahead of this and be able to end this outbreak.”
Across the country, more than 4,600 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed across 48 jurisdictions, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Globally, more than 20,000 cases have been reported — a total that health experts say is likely significantly undercounted.
“Every American should pay attention to monkeypox. Monkeypox is not COVID, but it is contagious. It is painful and can be dangerous,” Becerra said.
Ninety-nine percent of the cases reported domestically have been reported among people who were assigned male at birth, officials said, and the “vast majority” have been related to male-to-male sexual contact.
“We need everyone — whether it’s state and local health officials — who oversee health care and are responsible in their jurisdictions for health care, we need people who are at risk and we need all Americans to do their part and take responsibility to help us tackle monkeypox,” Becerra said.
However, federal officials had previously confirmed that other populations have been affected.
Last week, federal officials reported that two children in the U.S. had tested positive for monkeypox. In addition, a pregnant woman, who just recently delivered, has also contracted the virus, the CDC confirmed to ABC News on Thursday.
Although infections can occur through placental transfer to the baby, that does not appear to have happened in this case, the CDC’s Dr. John Brooks said during a webinar with the Infectious Disease Society of America.
The infant received immunoglobulin prophylactically, in an effort to boost the baby’s immune response, and “both mom and baby are doing well,” he said.
Officials from the Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that it had inspected and approved the manufacturing of the 786,000 more doses of JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine for distribution in the U.S. Thus far, the U.S. has distributed at least 338,000 doses of the JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine. Overall, in the coming weeks, a total of 1.1 million doses will have been made available.
“More than 1.1 million vaccines that we can say with confidence will be in the hands of people who need them over the course of the next several weeks,” officials said, adding that including doses already distributed, the federal government will have secured more than 6.9 million monkeypox vaccine doses by May 2023.
Pending additional funding from Congress, 11.1 million additional doses could also be made available.
“We don’t know what comes next and we need to be prepared for the spread into the larger population and have additional doses that we can turn to so that’s the reason why we would like to go ahead and get that additional 11.1 finished, have it available,” officials said.
At this time, approximately 1.5 million Americans are currently considered eligible for vaccination, the CDC told ABC News, last week.
Capt. Jennifer McQuiston, the CDC’s Deputy Director of Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, said officials have updated the federal plan for allocating doses to include two key factors: the total population of people at risk in a jurisdiction, and the number of new cases in each jurisdiction, since the last allocation.
“This update gives greater weight to prioritizing vaccine to areas with the greatest number of people at risk, which includes men who have sex with men who have HIV, or who are eligible for HIV prep, while still considering where we are seeing cases increased,” McQuiston said.
In addition to vaccinations in high-risk populations, testing, prevention, and treatment, as well as education and outreach, will all be critical tools to ensuring the outbreak is kept under control.
(NEW YORK) — A 66-year-old man who was diagnosed with HIV in 1988 is said to be free of both the HIV virus and cancer, following a stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor for leukemia, according to a breakthrough announcement at the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada.
The patient was treated at City of Hope, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the U.S. and one of the leading research centers for diabetes and other life-threatening illnesses, the organization said.
The City of Hope patient is reportedly the fourth patient in the world and the oldest to go into long-term remission of HIV without antiretroviral therapy (ART) for over a year after receiving stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation.
“We were thrilled to let him know that his HIV is in remission and he no longer needs to take antiretroviral therapy that he had been on for over 30 years,” Jana K. Dickter, an associate clinical professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at City of Hope who presented the data, said in a press release.
According to City of Hope, the patient received a chemotherapy-based, reduced-intensity transplant regimen prior to his stem cell transplant. “Reduced-intensity chemotherapy makes the transplant more tolerable for older patients and reduces the potential for transplant-related complications from the procedure,” the organization said in the release.
The patient received a blood stem cell transplant at City of Hope in early 2019 for acute myelogenous leukemia from an unrelated donor who has a rare genetic mutation, homozygous CCR5 Delta 32, City of Hope said. That mutation makes people who have it resistant to acquiring certain strains of HIV.
CCR5 is a receptor on CD4+ immune cells, and HIV uses that receptor to enter and attack the immune system. But the CCR5 mutation blocks that pathway, which stops HIV from entering the cells and therefore replicating.
The City of Hope patient has not shown any evidence of having replicating HIV virus since the transplant, the organization said.
“We are proud to have played a part in helping the City of Hope patient reach remission for both HIV and leukemia. It is humbling to know that our pioneering science in bone marrow and stem cell transplants, along with our pursuit of the best precision medicine in cancer, has helped transform this patient’s life,” said Robert Stone, the president and CEO of City of Hope, in a statement.
While the announcement provides hope for millions living with HIV, medical experts have cautioned that a procedure like this is not a viable cure for the virus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged caution in February after researchers announced that an American woman had been cured of HIV after undergoing a new transplant procedure using donated umbilical cord blood.
“It is not practical to think that this is something that’s going to be widely available,” Fauci said. “It’s more of a proof of concept.”
Because bone marrow transplantation is a dangerous and risky procedure, it is considered unethical to perform it on people with HIV, unless the person also has cancer and needs a transplant as part of their cancer treatment.
Despite the fact that this is not a practical and applicable cure for HIV on a large scale, there have been incredible strides in HIV treatment and innovation over the years that allow individuals living with HIV to live a normal and healthy life.
Known as U=U, or Undetectable=Untransmittable, if an HIV-positive person begins appropriate HIV treatment, takes it daily and brings the virus in their body to an undetectable level, the individual cannot transmit the virus to someone as long as their virus levels remain undetectable on said treatment or medication.
In December 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first long-acting injectable drug for HIV prevention.
A less reliable, though still highly effective, way of preventing HIV infection is post-exposure prophylaxis or PEP. These pills are meant to be taken right away or within 72 hours if someone has been exposed or potentially exposed to HIV to try and prevent the virus from entering immune cells causing infection. It’s like an emergency pill for HIV prevention and must be taken daily for 28 days.
When taken as prescribed, PrEP services reduce the risk of getting HIV from sex by about 99%, according to new data from the CDC. Now, individuals who feel at-risk of HIV infection have the option of taking the daily pill, or the new shot every two months, after two initiation injections administered one month apart.
On the vaccine front, Moderna recently announced that it’s launched early stage clinical trials of an HIV mRNA vaccine. ABC News previously reported that the biotechnology company teamed up with the nonprofit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative to develop the shot, which uses the same technology as Moderna’s successful COVID-19 vaccine.
ABC News’ Eric Strauss, Sony Salzman and Jennifer Watts contributed to this report.
(ATLANTA) — Minorities are bearing the brunt of monkeypox cases in the United States, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.
During a telemedia briefing Thursday, Capt. Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the division of high consequence pathogens and pathology at the CDC, shared the first breakdown of infections by race and ethnicity.
Of the more than 4,600 cases reported in the U.S., Hispanic and Black Americans make up a disproportionate share of cases compared to their share of the U.S. population.
Hispanics account for 31% of all monkeypox cases in the country so far and Black people make up 27% of cases, McQuiston said.
However, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanics only make up 19% of the population and Black people account for 13%.
By comparison, white Americans make up 37% of monkeypox cases while accounting for 59% of the U.S. population.
Only Asian Americans had roughly the same share of monkeypox cases compared to their share of the U.S. population accounting for 4% of cases and 6% of the population.
“It’s incredibly important to understand the populations that are being impacted by the virus and, unfortunately, minorities are being impacted the most,” Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said. “It’s not dissimilar to what we saw with COVID.”
He continued, “The concern you have is some of these populations are challenged in terms of access to testing and vaccination and this puts the pressure on the public health officials to make sure they have access to testing and vaccines.”
The CDC also said the median age of monkeypox patients is 35 with cases identified between those aged 17 to 76, excluding two pediatric cases.
Additionally, the CDC said 99% of monkeypox patients are those who were of male sex at birth and the “vast majority” of cases occurred during sexual contact, but there is no evidence the disease is sexually transmitted.
The breakdown of cases by race and ethnicity is similar to what’s been seen in localized outbreaks across the country.
Joshua O’Neal, the sexual health program director of the state of Georgia’s Fulton County Board of Health — which includes Atlanta — said during a virtual town hall July 21 that of the 106 people in the county confirmed with monkeypox, 63% are Black and 15% are white.
This is in stark contrast with the racial makeup of the county that shows 39% of residents are white and 42% are black, according to census data.
In Santa Clara County in California — 45 miles from San Francisco — the Public Health Department found 41% of monkeypox cases are among Hispanic gay and bisexual men, as of Wednesday, despite Hispanic people making up 26% of the county’s population.
“We are doing all we can to vaccinate the people who need it most, with the limited vaccine supply available,” Dr. Sara Cody, health officer and director of the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department, said in a statement. “Public health is about equity and making sure all people have access to the health care they need.”
(NEW YORK) — As the number of cases of monkeypox continue to rise in the United States, pregnant women are now among those affected.
The first case of monkeypox in a pregnant woman in the U.S. has been reported, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC’s Dr. John Brooks confirmed the case over the weekend, adding that the mother safely delivered the baby and both mother and baby are “doing well.”
Pregnant people are already among those whom the CDC considers at “increased risk” for severe monkeypox, along with children under the age of 8, people who are immunocompromised and those who have a history of atopic dermatitis or eczema.
The U.S. has reported a total of over 4,600 known monkeypox cases as of July 27, federal and global data shows, surpassing Spain’s 3,738. Health experts have said that the number of monkeypox cases is likely much higher than the total that is officially reported, and U.S. health officials have been warning for weeks that the number of monkeypox cases would likely increase across the country, as the government increases testing capacity and surveillance.
Monkeypox, a cousin of the smallpox virus, has been known to cause adverse outcomes in pregnancy, according to Dr. Joanne L. Stone, chair of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Health System.
“There’s a lot of unknown but there have been reported adverse outcomes,” said Stone. “So this is why it’s on people’s radar and why it’s important to get the relevant information that we have to pregnant individuals.”
Stone stressed that pregnant women should not panic because, so far, the number of infected individuals remains low, but added, “Because we know there are potentially adverse outcomes, avoiding as much as you can anyone who shows signs of symptoms of infections is really important.”
Here are five things for pregnant women to know about monkeypox.
1. Avoiding contact with people with monkeypox is critical.
Monkeypox can spread through direct contact with an infectious rash, scab or bodily fluids or via respiratory secretions during prolonged face-to-face contact or intimate physical contact, according to the CDC.
The agency recommends avoiding close, skin-to-skin contact — including touching, having sex with, kissing, hugging or cuddling — with people who have a rash that looks like monkeypox.
In addition, people are advised to not touch the bedding, towels or clothing of a person with monkeypox, and to wash hands often with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
Dr. Amy Arrington, medical director of the Special Isolation Unit at Texas Children’s Hospital, stressed that close contact is required to spread the disease.
“You cannot get this virus from touching an elevator button, from walking past someone in the mall casually,” she told ABC News this week. “It is spread by close contact — contact with lesions — so touching infectious lesions or infectious scabs.”
2. Monkeypox can be transferred to the fetus.
Monkeypox can be transmitted to the fetus both during birth and by close contact during and after birth, according to the CDC.
Stone noted that if a pregnant woman gives birth with monkeypox, her newborn will need to be isolated to avoid further close contact with the mother.
There are only five laboratory-confirmed cases of monkeypox in pregnancy currently published in medical literature, according to research summarized by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, of which Stone is president.
Three of those five cases resulted in pregnancy loss, according to the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
In addition to miscarriage and stillbirth, monkeypox also brings an increased risk of preterm delivery, according to Stone.
3. Symptoms should be taken seriously.
Because monkeypox is so contagious and potentially dangerous for pregnant women, the first signs of it should be taken seriously, according to Stone.
“You need to be evaluated by a doctor to see if [a symptom] is due to monkeypox or to some other kind of infection,” she said. “And if you know that you are exposed, consulting with an infectious disease specialist or the CDC as well as your obstetrician is really important.”
Typically, the disease begins with a fever, headache, fatigue, chills and muscle aches. Unlike smallpox, however, monkeypox also causes swollen lymph nodes.
Within one to three days, those infected will typically develop a rash either on their face or other parts of the body.
Lesions start out as dark spots on the skin before progressing to bumps that fill with fluid.
The CDC said that with pregnant people, a “broad approach to testing” for monkeypox is recommended since so many of the symptoms, like fever and rash, may be common in pregnancy.
4. Why exactly pregnant people are more at risk is not known.
Health experts are not 100% sure why conditions like monkeypox are more severe in pregnancy, according to Stone.
One hypothesis, she noted, is that it could be due to a change in immunity that happens during pregnancy.
Smallpox is also associated with “more severe illness” during pregnancy, according to research published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
5. It’s important to get medical care.
Although monkeypox is typically mild and does not require treatment in non-pregnant people, pregnant people with monkeypox need to be closely monitored, according to the CDC.
“Treatment for monkeypox virus should be offered, when indicated, to people who are pregnant, recently pregnant, or breastfeeding,” the agency says on its website.
There are several antiviral medications that have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of monkeypox, including in pregnant people.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso, Arielle Mitropoulos, Sony Salzman and Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
(TETON COUNTY, Wyo.) — “Trigger laws” that would place a near-total ban on abortion were temporarily blocked in Wyoming and North Dakota on Wednesday, just as they were to go into effect.
Both states are among more than a dozen that had passed laws that would enact bans on abortion should Roe v. Wade be overturned.
Wyoming’s law bans abortion in all circumstances except rape, incest or if the mother is in serious risk of death or injury. It briefly went into effect on Wednesday, until a Teton County judge shortly issued a temporary restraining order blocking it.
The order is in response to a lawsuit that argues the law violates rights guaranteed by the state’s constitution — a claim the state has contested.
Wellspring Health Access, a national abortion rights organization that is building a full-service abortion clinic in Casper, is among those suing the state. Its founder and president, Julie Burkhart, called Wednesday’s ruling a “temporary victory.”
“If allowed to take effect, the abortion ‘trigger ban’ that was temporarily blocked today would severely restrict Wyomingites’ freedom to make decisions about their own bodies,” Burkhart said in a statement. “We will continue our efforts to ensure that Wyoming residents maintain their fundamental, constitutionally protected right to make their own health care decisions.”
Burkhart’s clinic was set to open last month until an arson fire in May delayed the launch for several months.
ABC News has reached out to the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office for comment.
With the ban blocked, abortions in Wyoming are still legal up to the point of viability, or around 24 weeks into pregnancy.
Meanwhile, North Dakota’s trigger law, which would similarly ban abortion except in the cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother, was set to go into effect on Thursday. A state district court judge granted a temporary restraining order against the law on Wednesday, barring it from taking effect.
In its ruling, the court stated that the state attorney general “prematurely attempted to executive the triggering language” before the U.S. Supreme Court issued its certified judgment overturning Roe v. Wade — which the high court did on Wednesday.
The order is in response to a lawsuit brought forth by the Red River Women’s Clinic, the state’s lone abortion provider, which claimed the ban violates the state constitution.
“We’re relieved that a North Dakota state court has blocked its devastating trigger ban for now,” Meetra Mehdizadeh, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit, said in a statement. “If allowed to go into effect, this near-total abortion ban would close the state’s sole abortion clinic, leaving North Dakotans with no clinic within the state to turn for essential health care.”
North Dakota Attorney General Drew Rigley told ABC News that his office took steps “within an hour” of the court’s decision to issue the certification for the law, which he said is now slated to go into effect on Aug. 26 based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s certified judgment.
The block allows Red River Women’s Clinic, which is relocating to Minnesota in the wake of Roe being overturned, to provide abortion care while the case proceeds.
Abortions in North Dakota are still legal up until 20 weeks into a pregnancy.
Several other states, including Kentucky, Louisiana and Utah, have had trigger laws temporarily blocked amid lawsuits.
