Monkeypox case in Massachusetts: Department of Public Health tracking 200-plus contacts for patient

State health officials who are investigating the only confirmed monkeypox case in the U.S. are tracking more than 200 contacts of the Boston patient, the CDC said Monday.

The “vast majority” of the contacts of the Massachusetts man are health care workers, according to Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology. The patient was admitted last week to Massachusetts General Hospital and was isolated.

“The Massachusetts Department of (Public) Health is the entity that’s doing the primary work with the patient and doing the contact tracing investigation,” McQuiston said in response to a Herald question during a media briefing.

“(The DPH) have shared with us that they’ve been tracking over 200 contacts,” she added. “The vast majority of them are health care workers.”

There are also some personal contacts of the Massachusetts patient, McQuiston said.

The Bay State man, who recently traveled to Canada where a monkeypox cluster has been reported, remains the only confirmed monkeypox infection in the U.S.

There are now four orthopoxvirus cases across the country, which are considered suspected monkeypox cases. Orthopoxvirus is in the same family as the monkeypox virus.

New York health officials last week reported that a person tested positive for orthopoxvirus. CDC officials on Monday said Florida now has an orthopoxvirus case, and two have been reported in Utah.

“It’s likely that there are going to be additional cases reported in the United States,” McQuiston said.

Monkeypox clusters have been reported in the U.K., Spain and Portugal — which are not endemic for the monkeypox virus. Endemic countries for the virus are in Africa.

“The CDC worked really quickly to sequence the virus from the Massachusetts patient and within 48 hours, we had determined that it closely matched the sequence being reported from a Portugal patient,” McQuiston said, noting this sequencing data is important to understand how the virus is spreading across the globe.

Monkeypox typically begins with flu-like illness and swelling of the lymph nodes and progresses to a rash on the face and body.

The virus does not spread easily between people. Transmission can occur through contact with body fluids, monkeypox sores, items that have been contaminated with fluids or sores (clothing, bedding, etc.), or through respiratory droplets following prolonged face-to-face contact.

A leading adviser to the World Health Organization said that this unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox in developed countries might be explained by sexual behavior at two recent raves in Europe.

Dr. David Heymann, who formerly headed WHO’s emergencies department, said the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission at raves held in Spain and Belgium.

Heymann said, “We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission.”

Herald wire services contributed to this report.