The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a health alert after a strain of monkeypox was discovered in California.
The California resident had “recently traveled to areas experiencing clade I monkeypox virus (MPXV) transmission and sought medical care for mpox symptoms in the United States,” according to the health alert. “Consistent with other recent clade I mpox cases, the patient has relatively mild illness and is recovering.”
No other cases of monkeypox have been identified in the United States.
The CDC noted that from January 1 through November 15, 2024, about 12,000 confirmed cases of clade 1 mpox were reported in Central and Eastern African countries, with at least 47 deaths.
“Given the widespread outbreaks in Central and Eastern Africa, additional travel-associated cases may be reported in the future in the United States,” the alert added.
In a statement released on November 16, the California Department of Public Health said mpox’s risk to the public “remains very low.”
A study released earlier this year claimed that a monkeypox strain had “pandemic potential.”
According to the study, Clade Ib derives from genomes from an outbreak in Kamituga in October 2023.
“The Kamituga mpox outbreak spread rapidly, with 241 suspected cases reported within 5 months of the first reported case,” the study said. “Of 108 confirmed cases, 29% were sex workers, highlighting sexual contact as a key mode of infection. Genomic analysis revealed a distinct MPXV Clade Ib lineage, divergent from previously sequenced Clade I strains in DRC. Predominance of APOBEC3-type mutations and estimated time of emergence around mid-September 2023 suggest recent human-to-human transmission.”
The study’s authors asserted that the strain required “[u]rgent measures, including reinforced, expanded surveillance, contact tracing, case management support, and targeted vaccination” to “contain this new pandemic-potential Clade Ib outbreak.”
American Faith reported that an investigation conducted by a panel in the House of Representatives found that the government falsely claimed that a monkeypox experiment was never approved.
Dr. Bernard Moss from the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said in 2022 that he intended to take genes from a clade 1 mpox and integrate them into a less harmful strain.
Upon inquiry from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Moss said the experiment was never introduced or approved.
These assertions were “false,” an interim report from the House committee states. “Internal NIH documents show this experiment was formally proposed and received approval before the NIH’s Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) on June 30, 2015—seven years before the Committee first asked about the MPXV experiment.”
