(ATLANTA) — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has confirmed the first cases of monkeypox in children, federal officials said Friday.

The two cases are unrelated and were likely the result of household transmission, federal officials confirmed to ABC News.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky first disclosed the cases in an interview with Washington Post Live.

The pediatric cases were traced to individuals in the men who have sex with men community, Walensky said, noting that the children “are doing well.”

One of the cases is in a toddler who is a resident of California and the other is an infant who is a non-U.S. resident, officials said.

The infant was “transiting through” Washington, D.C. when the test was done, Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the CDC’s Division of the High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, told reporters on a press call Friday.

Both children have monkeypox symptoms, but officials said that they are currently in good health and are receiving TPOXX, a Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for smallpox that has been made available for children under special expanded access protocols.

The agency became aware of the cases this week, McQuiston said. The CDC is not identifying the country the infant is from at this time, but health officials there are aware of the case, she said.

“We’ve been working with the jurisdictions to understand more about these cases,” McQuiston said. “The investigations are still in the early phase and ongoing so we don’t have a lot of details on them.”

As of Friday, more than 2,800 cases of monkeypox have been reported in the U.S. across 44 states, as well as Puerto Rico, according to CDC data.

Nearly all cases — 99% — have been reported among individuals who identify as gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men, McQuiston said Friday.

“The primary drivers for this infection in the U.S. remain in the gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men communities right now,” McQuiston said. “But we need to continue watching this and we stand ready to keep surveillance up and respond.”

The median age for cases was 36, with cases ranging from the infant to over 70, McQuiston said.

Walensky said there have been challenges in obtaining real-time data on monkeypox data, including demographics on race, ethnicity and age of cases and vaccinations.

“We very much want to get as much information as informed decisions out to the American public as possible,” she said in her Washington Post Live interview.

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.

It generally is a mild illness with the most common symptoms being fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches.

Children under 8 years of age are among those considered at “especially increased risk for severe outcomes” from the disease, the CDC said.

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — When the New York State Department of Health announced a patient in Rockland County — north of New York City — had contracted polio, they revealed it was a case of vaccine-derived polio.

Vaccine-derived poliovirus is different than poliovirus that originated in the wild which spreads naturally among a community.

The NYSDOH said in a release that testing, performed by the department’s public health laboratory and confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showed the patient was infected with polio Sabin type 2 virus, indicating he or she was infected by someone who received the oral polio vaccine, which is no longer used in the United States.

Here’s what to know about vaccine-derived polio and how it differs from wild polio.

Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is highly contagious and spreads via person-to-person contact even when the original contagious patient doesn’t show symptoms.

According to the CDC, about one in four people exhibit flu-like symptoms such as fever, fatigue and a headache, which clear up within a week. But in rare cases, polio can lead to paralysis and death.

People can be protected against polio from two types of vaccines: an inactivated poliovirus vaccine given by injection and an oral polio vaccine containing a weakened version of the virus and given by mouth.

The oral polio vaccine played a massive role in the eradication of polio because it is cheaper and easier to administer than the injected vaccine, making it suitable for distribution, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

“It’s a live attenuated virus,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “It’s a weakened virus that provides really good immunity in the gut, where the virus replicates, and it sheds in stool, which can spread through sewage and help protect the community.”

However, a potential, adverse effect of the oral vaccine is vaccine-derived poliovirus.

In rare cases, the virus spreading through sewage can affect those who are unvaccinated. This is different from wild polio, which infects people by circulating naturally in the environment.

Due to this risk, the oral vaccine was discontinued in the U.S. in 2000. New York health officials said the virus in the Rockland County patient likely originated in a country outside the U.S., where the oral vaccine is still given.

The NYSDOH said Friday that only 61% of Rockland County residents have been vaccinated against polio by age 2 compared to a 79% rate statewide, excluding New York City.

“There’s likely transmission going on in the community and in an under-vaccinated community like the one in New York, it creates a susceptibility,” Brownstein said. “But in those who are vaccinated, there’s really no risk.”

The New York case is not the first time that vaccine-derived polio has been detected in the U.S.

In 2005, it was found in the stool of a Minnesota child who was unvaccinated and immunocompromised, and likely caught from someone who received the oral vaccine in another country, according to the CDC. Seven other children subsequently contracted polio but none ended up paralyzed.

In 2013, an infant who was severely immunocompromised received the oral vaccine in India. The baby ended up contracting polio and dying from the infection, the CDC said.

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