U.S. testing for monkeypox is insufficient to determine how widespread the virus is and where new cases are, infectious disease experts say
on Twitter that it took him six hours to get a call through to his public health laboratory about one suspected monkeypox case.
U.S. health agencies began planning for a smallpox outbreak after the September 11, 2001 attacks and anthrax spores sent through the mail raised concerns about bioterrorism. That’s helped buttress the health system against emerging diseases like monkeypox, but there are still important gaps that showed up in the early days of the pandemic.
Other practices may limit the recognition of monkeypox’s spread. Most testing is currently reserved for people with a characteristic rash and who either are men who have sex with men or have recently traveled abroad, according to Paul Sax, an infectious diseases doctor at Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Most of the people tested by New York’s health department have been men, Backenson said.
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