A Man Has Died From Alaskapox. Here ’s What We Know About the Virus

Alaska’s health department reports that the first person in the state has died from a recently discovered virus called Alaskapox. The elderly man—who was immunocompromised due to cancer treatments—first noticed an unusual lesion in his right armpit last September, according to Alaska health officials who spoke to TIME about the case. He was prescribed antibiotics at his local emergency room on the Kenai Peninsula, but after multiple visits and a worsening, painful infection, he was transferred to a hospital in Anchorage. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The patient tested positive for orthopoxvirus, but extensive testing ruled out cowpox, mpox, and chickenpox, which are members of the same viral family. Doctors sent a sample to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, where scientists confirmed the presence of Alaskapox. After initially improving, the man’s health declined, and he eventually experienced renal and respiratory failure. What is Alaskapox? Alaskapox was first reported in a man in the Fairbanks region in 2015. Six additional cases have since been reported, all in residents of the same area—one in 2020, two in 2021, one in 2022, and two in 2023 (including the latest case). All of the patients before the most recent one had relatively mild symptoms of rashes and swollen lymph nodes and recovered without treatment. Infectious disease experts tested small mammals in the region and ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news