State officials said the patient was not infected during the trip, did not need to be admitted to the hospital and was isolated at home. The Department of Health is tracking his close contacts and monitoring them.
State Health Commissioner Colin M. Green, despite recent national developments, insisted that the monkey box was a very rare disease in the United States and that a positively tested Virginia resident did not pose a public health risk.
“The transmission requires close contact with someone with monkeypox symptoms, and the virus has not shown the ability to spread rapidly among the general population,” he said.
Department of Health last week Advised Medical providers in Virginia should monitor those suffering from monkey flu and report it immediately to local health officials.
Monkey is a rare but serious viral disease that usually starts with fever-like symptoms and inflammation of the lymph nodes and progresses to a rash on the face and body, state news reports say. Symptoms usually appear seven to 14 days after exposure and usually disappear within two to four weeks.
Recent cases indicate that they were first identified in the United States this year. Last year, Virginia officials said each of Maryland and Texas recently filed a lawsuit against Nigerians.
This year, cases have also been identified in Massachusetts, Florida, Utah, New York, Washington State and California.
“We have to speculate that there may be some social spread, but there is now active communication tracking to understand how these cases interacted with each other or with others in other countries,” said CDC Director Rochelle Valensky. Said Thursday.
The first monkey box case in the United States this year was identified last week in Massachusetts by a resident who recently traveled to Canada. The World Health Organization says that extraordinary progress worldwide is clustered in Europe, the United States and Canada.
Fenit Nirappil contributed to this report.
