The states of California and Illinois, in the United States, said Monday state of emergency for recording an increase in the number of monkeypox cases, thus joining New York, which it had done on the same last Friday.

It thus happens that the three states that have declared the emergency are the ones that host the three major American cities: New York (in the state of the same name), Los Angeles (California) and Chicago (Illinois).

The emergency declaration authorizes state agencies to allocate funds and other resources to help localities in the fight against this disease.

The United States accounted for approx six thousand cases of monkeypox in recent months, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

In late July, the CDC first detected two cases of monkeypox In children.

Health officials have indicated that both cases are related and that it is very likely that the children were infected at home by family transmission.

monkeypox it does not spread easily among humans: Transmission occurs through close contact with infected skin, body fluids, or respiratory droplets from an infected person with whom you have sex.

It is a virus other than smallpox, which is transmitted outside its usual endemic area (Central and West Africa), so it is necessary to exercise a strict epidemiological control.

A person is considered to be contagious from the beginning of the enantema, lesions of the oral mucosa, up to the healing of the lesions and the formation of a new layer of skin.

For this reason, infected people should stay isolated until all skin lesions have healed, and especially avoid close contact with immunocompromised people.

The incubation period for monkeypox can range from five to 21 days, and the clinical picture usually begins with a combination of symptoms such as fever, headache, body achescharacteristic skin lesions and swollen glands.

As for its severity, epidemiologists point out that the cases of the current outbreak are milder than those described in West Africa and that they are barely generating hospital admissions. However, he reminds him, the lesions on the skin and mucous membranes are very annoying.

Source: EFE.