Arkansas health officials identified monkeypox case

So let me just start by saying, I’m dr jennifer Dillehay, I’m the director and state health officer here at the Arkansas Department of Health and it’s J E N N I F E R D I L L *** H ***. So I think you all have the press release. Um so we have um our first case of monkey pox uh in an Arkansas resident that we are reporting, I regret that I cannot give you any details about the case. But I can’t talk about monkeypox. You can’t talk about the case but could give location or region or part of Arkansas. I cannot give the location of the case. Okay, so there’s one single one right now. Yes. Okay. And how are they? Go ahead please? I’m sorry, say it again. How are they getting reported? How does it get up to you? So um whenever there’s *** test done and the test is positive, then the test is reported to the Arkansas Department of Health. And what is the reasoning behind not being slightly more specific other than generally just the state of Arkansas. Well, um it potentially could identify the patient. So we’re not able to say Northwest Arkansas, Northeast Arkansas Central Arkansas Delta. Any of those would be too specific in your opinion? Okay, another question about monkeypox, why don’t you go ahead and walk through the symptoms of what we need to be looking out for if you would. Sure. So monkey pox is *** virus that is primarily transmitted by close contact, be contact with the uh rash, the rash is very infectious and the once *** person gets infected with the virus, it may take several days *** week to two weeks to develop the symptoms, these symptoms are fever. Uh huh. Just feeling badly, fatigue malaise. It also could include uh let me think about this uh muscle pain, headache, just generalized symptoms of being infected. And then there is the rash and the rash starts out as kind of *** flat um rash and then it develops what we call vesicles which are um ah bumps that have clear fluid in them. And then they turn into pustules which have pus in them. And then they will scab over and then once they scab over and there’s new skin under where the rash was, then they would no longer be contagious. Up until the time of that rash surfacing. Is there any way for somebody to know the difference between that and covid? So let’s say they take *** test and the test is negative. Could there be confusion in there? Well, that is one of the difficulties. It um you know, when someone has *** fever, headache and feeling just generally poorly muscle aches, it could be *** whole number of things. So that’s when it’s helpful to get testing for other things as well. This rash sometimes is confused or hard to tell in the beginning from other illnesses that cause rashes such as chickenpox or um hey, you know, because in the beginning the rash doesn’t look typical as the rash. The rash evolves, it looks more and more like typical monkey pox. So if *** healthcare provider has seen photos of it, they may recognize it, but in general it would be helpful for people when they uh begin with these symptoms to talk to their healthcare provider and get appropriate symptoms to rule in or rule out or rule out various uh illnesses. Dr Dylan, I’m sorry, Do we have any sort of idea of how this person contracted monkeypox? Was it from traveling? Was it from interacting with another individual stateside? Who had monkeypox? So, I can’t give specifics about this case. Uh in the United States in general, um people have acquired monkeypox uh in locations that they have traveled to, as well as social networks that they are part of and interact with. So uh in the beginning of course it was more people who had international travel, but now it is spreading within the United States. So uh international travel is not as an important factor in deciding whether or not to test for monkeypox, but you can’t confirm whether this person got it stateside or internationally? No, I can’t give any information about this case right now. And with the July four holiday, *** lot of people traveling record numbers as the pandemic just behind us. Are you sort of bracing, what are you thinking in the days ahead, given all that contact and travel? Well, just simply traveling is not *** risk factor, Someone would have to have close contact with someone who has the rash uh and it would be either skin to skin contact or close contact with um the clothing or could be sheets. You know something that has put the rash and then someone else touches that. But it’s not just and easy pass by kind of touch, It’s going to be prolonged touch and that’s an important factor. So it is unlikely that someone would have acquired this rest simply by um being on the same. Mhm. Ah fly for example. So it sounds like you actually have to come in contact with the rash for it to be of any impact. Is that correct? Either the rash or the something that has had prolonged contact with *** rash, Like *** piece of clothing? It could also be acquired apparently by um uh contaminated body fluids um or just prolonged contact with respiratory secretions. And that would be prolonged face to face contact with such as kissing that could transmit it. It wouldn’t be someone sitting in the same room for example. Hi, this is Alex Golden with Ax ius so someone, do they already have to have symptoms to be able to spread the virus or could they be, could they not have presented symptoms yet and still spread it? It would be highly unlikely for anyone not to have symptoms then. What is the likelihood of us seeing more cases in the state of Arkansas if you need to have this prolonged contact to spread it. So if Arkansas follows the patterns of other states, we likely will have additional cases uh, in our state. Um, and it has to do with the social networks and the people who typically have had these infections, we follow the patterns for other states. Um, I understand that *** vaccine does exist for this. Is that something that you recommend people get? Is that, is that *** vaccine that um, that we typically already get like that trace other diseases like smallpox? Yes, So there are two vaccines that are available. Uh, one of them is the older we typically think of as *** smallpox vaccine. There’s *** newer vaccine called the genius vaccine that’s J Y N N E O. S. And it is also available and it is um easier to administer and has fewer contraindications. So more people, people who are immuno compromised or who for some reason cannot take. The older smallpox vaccine can received the genius right now, the number of doses available in the United States um, is not sufficient to meet the needs for everyone who might be at high risk. So right now, um, the vaccine is being made available to states to focus primarily on people who may have been exposed. Uh, fortunately if it’s someone learns they have been exposed if they can get vaccinated Within four days. It may prevent them from getting the illness completely. If they get vaccinated with say 4 to 14 days, it may not prevent them from getting the illness but it may lessen the severity of it. So states that have had cases have been allocated certain number of doses of these vaccines and have been making them available to prioritized groups over the summer. More vaccine will be made available to people in our states around the country and then we’ll be able to offer it uh to the people at highest risk. So if you got the older vaccine for smallpox, should you already have some protection for monkeypox? Uh It’s unknown how well the protection would have lasted. So um of course people who got the older smallpox vaccine got it many years ago and um they may have some protection but it hasn’t been studied how much protection they have. Uh And they have, those people would not have had *** booster over the years. So it’s likely there will be some protection but it may not be enough to prevent them from getting. In fact, is monkeypox deadly at all? Or are we worried about that or is it mostly just you’re sick for *** little while and then you can recover well so far with the current outbreak in the United States, we have not had any deaths. The Monkey Pox that circulates in Africa has uh death rate that can be up to 10%. It’s thought that perhaps 1% of the people with monkeypox when this uh, in this current outbreak could potentially be um experience severe outcomes within resulting in debt. But so far we have not had deaths associated with this outbreak. What are some of those severe outcomes, what did that look like? So the severe outcomes would be um, of course, disseminated rash. Um so uh and that would occur most likely in people who have um who are immuno compromised or who have certain skin conditions such as eczema and um that would result in um scarring and um severe illness. And people in that situation are the ones that hires the risk for dying. What types of severe illness just um so it causes high fever um ah uh it also causes um infection to such *** degree that it harms the vital organs. Um so, and and I’m still learning about monkeypox myself but it uh does result in severe systemic infection that could result in death. Doctor, thank you for doing the call. How much Jenny Eos, and how much time? 2000 and have we received or are we set to receive at some point in the future. So, up to this point, the Arkansas has not received an allocation because we did not have cases and we will soon learn about additional allocations available to our state but at this point in time we do not have vaccine in Arkansas and we hope to receive some in the near future. And I wanted to ask about testing, is this an Ortho pox virus positive case or has the CDC done the confirmatory monkeypox testing already? Um I can’t answer that right now. I know all the steps have been taken. Uh but I don’t know the specific and I can’t get the specifics about this particular case. I’ve heard *** lot of public health officials, different agencies, even people in different countries, they seem pretty clear that this *** is *** serious situation. But be this it seems like they’re saying is not the next Covid not the next giant worldwide pandemic. Can you talk about why that is? Well, there’s differences between these illnesses. One is that COVID-19 is highly transmissible. You can get it from someone in the same room with you. Um Monkeypox, you cannot get it from someone who’s just in the same room with you. Um the other difference is that COVID-19 has *** very short incubation period, probably just *** few days. And the incubation period between getting infected with um uh the virus that causes monkey pox is could be up to *** couple of weeks. So it gives people some time to do something and to do contact tracing for example. So people who have been exposed to monkeypox, uh we could potentially have them quarantined and get them *** vaccine. Um and that’s another difference. The vaccine for COVID-19 does not prevent someone from developing Covid 19 Uh after they have been infected. So if you get infected with COVID-19 and you get the vaccine it won’t prevent you from getting COVID-19 because the incubation period is so short that you the infection occurs before the vaccine can develop proper immunity. But in the case of monkeypox, if someone is infected and then gets vaccinated, the vaccine can work fast enough to keep someone from actually developing monkeypox. And then uh we do have you know in Covid first arrived, we didn’t have *** vaccine and we really didn’t have treatments but we already have um vaccine developed that’s FDA approved for monkeypox. And and also we um have some treatments of already available for People who developed the illness which we didn’t have in the case of COVID-19. Are those treatments um pretty readily available. Like if you if you do have monkeypox or you believe you’re exposed pretty easily get the antivirals that you need in the state so we can get them in Arkansas for uh cases that may occur in our state. And ah that we work with the cbc to get them. Um They’re not for example available at *** pharmacy. They have to be um obtained through the C. D. C. The vaccine and the treatments are part of what we call *** *** national stockpile that we have but they’re not, you know, someone can’t write *** prescription for example and go to the pharmacy to get it natural. So to get the vaccine you would need to see you kind of walk us through the process for somebody who might have been exposed or thinks they might have. So we would uh if they’re identified as being exposed then we would work closely with the CDC to obtain vaccine for them or if they develop illness we would work closely with the cbc to obtain the necessary treatments. How do you how do you test for monkeypox like? Is that um just like *** mouth swab you you test the rash to see if the virus is present in the rash. What is the difference between smallpox chickenpox and monkey pox. Well um smallpox and monkeypox are both in the same family of viruses the Ortho pox family and they’re similar but there’s enough differences that they’re classified as separate um disease or separate viruses and they cause diseases that are separate but similar. Chickenpox is in *** completely different viral virus family and it causes *** ah uh *** rash also that looks *** little bit similar. Um But it’s somewhat different in appearance from the monkeypox rash. It seems like we have *** virus outbreak affecting *** socially vulnerable community and this is not the first time that public health in America or globally has faced this. Are there any lessons that you or *** D. H. Learned from facing other diseases that targeted stigmatized communities like HIV AIDS or even recently. Covid with stigma against asian americans and pacific Islanders. Any of those lessons that affect how we’re talking about this and responding to this outbreak? Well I think it is important for us to recognize that anyone can get the monkey pox virus but when *** virus enters into any particular group, whether it’s monkey pox or Covid and uh huh. 8.40 29. Can you? All right thank you. Um so where was I if it goes into any group? Yes so anyone can get monkey pox if they’re exposed. It’s not just *** particular *** type of person that can get it. So we have to be careful about stigmatizing groups and knowing that we’re all vulnerable and also you know for any group with particular illness like COVID-19 when um it was the asians were stigmatized that doesn’t help anyone of course. And so it’s really important to us to make sure that people understand actual information about the illnesses as well as to make sure people know what resources are available to them and then do whatever we can to support any particular community in addressing their health needs. We are not interested in placing blame or uh yeah excluding any groups from benefiting from what we have to offer at the Arkansas department of health for everyone’s health in our state with school *** little over *** month away. Any concern was the level of concern as kids begin assembly again, any level of concern is what is the level of concern for kids because obviously the social part of it is the key here. But having kids back returning to school with this outbreak prevalent and you say it’s only going to increase. Uh so we do have concerns about uh groups and schools in general more about covid than monkey pox. But we also know that it’s important to do whatever we can to minimize the spread of monkeypox because we have concerns about spread, say for example, among athletes that have close skin to skin contact. Um and so that’s you know at ah shows that there are many groups in our state that would be vulnerable to monkey pox if it were allowed to spread. And that is one reason why it’s really important for us at the Arkansas Department of Health to make sure that we do *** good job and contact tracing and offering vaccines and treatment to the people who identified as being exposed uh or at high risk for exposure. So you are correct in that um the *** virus can spread among various groups and some of those groups, it may occur in schools, particularly those like athletes that would have skin skin contact, Would you say the main concern right now is still COVID-19 especially as we move into the summer and fall. Yes. Um, covid 19 is right now on the increase. Um we have *** variant called the B *** dot five which is now predominant and it is highly transmissible. And so we anticipate that when school starts we will see increased transmission of this particular variant. And for that reason it’s going to be very important for people to um start their vaccination process. Now if they have not been vaccinated yet because of course, especially for adolescents and Children, it takes up to eight weeks between the first and the second dose. Uh for people to get their primary series completed and then in some age groups *** booster dose would be recommended. So um it’s going to be really important um for people to um get that process started before school starts in order to minimize the spread in the classroom. We only have about 10 more minutes. Does anybody have any additional questions? What we have? You doctor delay, I mean I’ve been reading about the 8.5 and uh chair of medicine at the University of California san Francisco, he’s calling it *** beast with *** new superpower. Uh Can you kind of walk us through what this looks like comparatively to be *** point to. Um as well as uh so of course um any new variant of the um Virus that causes COVID-19 in order for it to be dominant, it has to out compete the other variants which means it has to be even more transmissible than the variant before. So this means that any time you have *** gathering where someone is infected then it’s going to be very difficult for people who aren’t immune to avoid infection. And as we saw that the Omar khan variant can spread exponentially like in january. And um then it means that people who are exposed can turn around and spread it very quickly. So um and the things that we’re looking at for the fall are the fact that it’s been it will have been several months since the uh surge we had from the omicron variant in january and february, which means *** lot of the immunity would have waned and plus the B *** 0.5 has *** fair amount of immune escape from prior immunity. Um At this point in time as I understand it, the FDA is working with the pharmaceutical companies looking for the development of *** booster dose that will specifically cover oh macron in addition to the traditional spike protein, the original spike protein that they have. So the B *** 0.5. B *** 0.4 will be likely be covered in new booster doses that will be available in the fall. So it looks like we may need to have um additional dose this fall in order to minimize the spread of this variant when school takes place and we have *** high level of spread occurring in communities most likely is *** th planning to sequence or send off for sequencing the monkey pox virus size so that we have uh no um at this point in time we are not doing any sequencing of monkeypox in our state that would all be done at the cbc. You may have hit on this. Um I wanted to know um what is the protocol once the health department is made aware of *** monkey pox case. So when *** monkeypox cases reported to the Arkansas Department of health, our outbreak prevention and response branch has staff that follow up with the patient and learn about their history. Huh Where they’ve been, who their contacts are. And then we work with the contacts to make sure that they um know about the exposure and can get vaccinated if that’s that’s appropriate. Uh When we uh learn about *** case we also provide information about that case to the CDC. Um Usually um the testing that’s done at *** state level then gets sent to the CDC for confirmatory testing and then the C. D. C. Um Once it’s confirmed the Cbc puts that on their map. Um So we have *** kind of *** protocol or process that we follow, it’s very similar to what we do for other reportable diseases in Arkansas. We make sure we take care of the patient and then take care of the contacts is the department of health doing the same the same process with monkeypox as it did with Covid and some other diseases where correct me if I’m wrong but um you don’t report where the case is as long as there’s only like less than five in *** county. So if there’s like more than five in one county, well, will we be able to know that we will probably follow something similar. Okay. We’ve only got about two minutes left. I just wanted to remind everybody. If you joined late, please leave your email in the chat so that I can get you *** copy of the recording and then if there’s any last questions before we run out of time, any other questions, I know there’s one in the chat about whether I were able to confirm this person traveled recently or where they travel and I’m not able to give any specifics about this case. Other questions. Thanks for doing this. Well, thank you all for covering it. I hope I’ve been able to address everything that you need. Um, we’re all learning about this. And uh, so if you have further questions once you get in it or need clarification and please contact us here at the health department and we’ll try to make sure that we get whatever information you need.

Arkansas Department of Health identifies state’s first case of monkeypox

Updated: 9:54 AM CDT Jul 6, 2022

Monkeypox has been identified in Arkansas for the first time, the state’s department of health announced. Watch the news conference in the video player above.”While this news is concerning, monkeypox is not as contagious as other viruses, like COVID-19,” Dr. Jennifer Dillaha director for the Arkansas Department of Health, wrote in a news release.The ADH did not say where in the state monkeypox was identified.Anyone who thinks they may have been exposed to monkeypox should contact their health care provider to be tested, Dillaha said.Symptoms of MonkeypoxThe symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache and a painful rash. These occur seven to 14 days after exposure, according to the ADH.The virus can be passed on through direct skin contact with rash, scabs or bodily fluids or with contaminated items like clothing.Monkeypox is not an airborne illness but can be transmitted during prolonged, face-to-face contact, according to the ADH.Vaccines are available for monkeypox. Antiviral drugs and immunoglobulins can help treat it.Monkeypox was first identified in the United States in May. It was found in Oklahoma and Missouri last month.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. —

Monkeypox has been identified in Arkansas for the first time, the state’s department of health announced. Watch the news conference in the video player above.

“While this news is concerning, monkeypox is not as contagious as other viruses, like COVID-19,” Dr. Jennifer Dillaha director for the Arkansas Department of Health, wrote in a news release.

The ADH did not say where in the state monkeypox was identified.

Anyone who thinks they may have been exposed to monkeypox should contact their health care provider to be tested, Dillaha said.

Symptoms of Monkeypox

The symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache and a painful rash. These occur seven to 14 days after exposure, according to the ADH.

The virus can be passed on through direct skin contact with rash, scabs or bodily fluids or with contaminated items like clothing.

Monkeypox is not an airborne illness but can be transmitted during prolonged, face-to-face contact, according to the ADH.

Vaccines are available for monkeypox. Antiviral drugs and immunoglobulins can help treat it.

Monkeypox was first identified in the United States in May. It was found in Oklahoma and Missouri last month.