The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed on Friday the first two U.S. cases of monkeypox in children, both adjacent to the gay community.
In a statement, the agency said that both cases are “likely the result of household transmission” and “had no contact with each other.”
“One is a toddler who lives in California, and the other is an infant who is not a resident of the U.S. and was “transiting through” the Washington, D.C. area when the test was done,” as reported by CBS News.
According to CDC, “young children (<8 years of age), individuals who are pregnant or immunocompromised, and individuals with a history of atopic dermatitis or eczema may be at especially increased risk for severe outcomes from monkeypox disease.”
It is still unknown how these children became infected with monkeypox, a disease that is most commonly transferred among gay men.
Per CDC, monkeypox is transmitted by symptomatic individuals through close contact with lesions, bodily fluids, or respiratory secretions and objects that have had contact with lesion crusts or bodily fluids, face-to-face contact, or during intimate physical contact, such as kissing, cuddling, or sex.
“We do have seen now two cases that have occurred in children,” Walensky said at a virtual event with the WaPo on Friday. “Both of those children are traced back to individuals who come from the men who have sex with men community, the gay men community.”
“And so when we have seen those cases in children, they have generally been what I call ‘adjacent to the community’ most at risk,” Walensky added.
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If Monkeypox is a sexually transmitted disease, why are kids getting it? pic.twitter.com/mvgSlxZ0Pp
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) July 23, 2022
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Jennifer McQuiston, the CDC’s deputy director of the division of high consequence pathogens, told reporters on a phone call Friday afternoon that one of the kids diagnosed is “an infant” who lives in another country, but who was traveling through Washington, DC with their family when they tested positive for monkeypox.
“The investigations are still in the early phase and ongoing,” she said of both pediatric cases. “So, we don’t have a lot of details on them.”
But McQuiston did suggest that both of the children were close contacts of men who have sex with men.
“MSM-adjacent is maybe not the greatest term, but I think it describes what we’re talking about here,” she said.
While there have been a few monkeypox cases diagnosed in women and children in the US, more than 99% of cases for which demographics are available in the US outbreak so far are among men who have sex with men.
“I don’t think it’s surprising,” she said of the two first pediatric cases diagnosed in the nation. “The social networks that we have as humans mean that we have contact with a lot of different people.”
The Gateway Pundit previously reported that New York City is now the “epicenter of the monkeypox outbreak” which accounts for 30% of all US cases.
“There are now [489] cases of monkeypox in the city, which is more than 30% of the recorded cases of monkeypox per the CDC,” NY Health said in a statement. “New York City is the epicenter of the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. and yet does not have sufficient vaccine supply to reach the number of people who need it to protect themselves.”
On Saturday, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the monkeypox outbreak a global health emergency just before the midterm election, as reported by The Gateway Pundit.
According to Reuters, two sources told that members of an expert committee were split on the decision, but the responsibility for making the final decision rests with the director-general Tedros.
According to reports, Tedros overruled the decision of 8 members of the expert committee who voted against the declaration. Only 6 are in favor.