Monkey cups: Rare cases reported in England, UKHSA says

Monkey cups: Rare cases reported in England, UKHSA says

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Monkey pox is a rare viral infection that does not spread easily between humans, the agency said, qualifying the overall risk to the public as “very low.”

“The infection can be spread when someone is in close contact with an infected person, but there is a very low risk of transmission to the general population,” the statement said.

The patient is believed to have contracted the infection in Nigeria, UKHSA said before traveling to the UK recently. He or she is receiving treatment in London at the Expert Unit for Infectious Diseases and Isolation at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

The CDC is investigating a case of monkey pox in Dallas among travelers from Nigeria

According to UKHSA, the first symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, swollen lymph nodes, chills and fatigue.

The UKHSA said it would contact people “who might have been in close contact with the individual to provide information and health advice,” as a precautionary measure.

Monkey smallpox is a relative of smallpox, which became extinct in 1979, but is less contagious and less deadly. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “The biggest difference between smallpox and monkey pox symptoms is that monkey pox causes lymph nodes to swell while smallpox does not.”

Rodents, including animals kept as pets, and monkeys can carry monkey cups and transmit it to humans. The CDC investigated a case in a traveler to Dallas last year.

Forty-seven people in the United States became infected with the virus in 2003 in an outbreak traced to a shipment of small mammals from Ghana sold as pets. There was a minor outbreak in the UK in 2018.

CNN’s Dakin Andone contributed to this report.

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