RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Today, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) announced the second presumed monkeypox case in a Virginia resident.
The testing completed confirmed the infection to be orthopoxvirus – a genus of viruses containing the Monkeypox species – and the VDH said confirmatory monkeypox testing will be done at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
According to the VDH, the patient is an adult male resident of the northern Virginia area who was exposed to the disease while out of state. The man did not require hospitalization and is isolating at home.
The CDC confirmed Virginia’s first case of monkeypox almost a month ago, on May, 27. Multiple countries, including the United States, are currently experiencing a monkeypox outbreak.
“Monkeypox is a rare disease in the United States and based on the information currently available about the evolving multi-country outbreak, the risk to the public appears to be low.” said State Epidemiologist Lilian Peake, MD, MPH, Director of the Office of Epidemiology at VDH in a release.
The CDC said that monkeypox, a virus that originates in animals such as rodents and primates and sometimes moves on to people, causes patients to have a fever, chills, swollen lymph nodes, headache, body aches and fatigue. Some who experience serious outcomes could develop a rash and lesions on their body.
The incubation period — the window from infection to symptoms — for monkeypox is typically seven to 14 days, but could range from five to 21 days, according to the CDC. The illness often lasts between two to four weeks.
