According to the latest CDC recommendations for parents, teachers, and administrators, extra precautions are not necessary to prevent the spread of monkeypox in schools and child care centers.
The new CDC guidelines, released as a set of FAQs on the agency’s website, come at a time when health departments around the country are issuing their own guidelines for schools in preparation for the return of students.
“At this time, the risk of monkeypox to children and adolescents in the United States is low,” according to CDC.
“In this outbreak, most cases of monkeypox have been associated with sexual contact,” the agency added. “Monkeypox can more accurately be described as “sexually transmissible.”
“At this time, data suggest that gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men make up the majority of cases in the current monkeypox outbreak,” CDC said.
The Gateway Previously reported that health experts now believe monkeypox is spread through anal and oral sex between men.
“In recent weeks, a growing body of scientific evidence — including a trio of studies published in peer-reviewed journals, as well as reports from national, regional and global health authorities — has suggested that experts may have framed monkeypox’s typical transmission route precisely backward,” according to NBC.
In order to limit the spread of infectious diseases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that all facilities adhere to standard operating procedures.
“This includes children, staff, and volunteers staying home when sick, ensuring access to adequate handwashing supplies, including soap and water, maintaining routine cleaning and disinfection practices, identifying private spaces for assessment of an ill child away from others, and providing personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff who care for students with infectious diseases.”
CDC does not recommend widespread vaccination against monkeypox at this time.
“During this outbreak, people who are sexually active are not considered to be at risk for monkeypox unless their sexual partners have monkeypox or they have had multiple sexual partners within the past 14 days in areas where monkeypox cases have been reported,” CDC said.
As of August 22, the CDC recorded almost 17,000 cases in the country with zero deaths.
The Gateway Pundit reported that eight children were infected with monkeypox including an infant child under the age of 2, citing a report from ABC.
At least eight children in the U.S. have now tested positive for monkeypox, after health officials in Harris County, Texas, confirmed to ABC News that a presumptive case had been identified in a child under the age of 2.
The news of the positive pediatric case in Texas comes after a child in Martin County, Florida, has tested positive for monkeypox, according to state health data. The child in Florida is between the ages of 0 and 4 years old, according to the state health data.
Officials in Maine also announced Friday that they, too, had confirmed a positive monkeypox case in a child. No further information about the case has been released due to concerns over patient privacy, officials said.
“Maine CDC [Center for Disease Control and Prevention] is working to identify any others who may have been exposed and make vaccination available to close contacts,” officials wrote in a press release.
In addition to the cases in children reported in Maine and Florida, two cases have been confirmed in California, as well another two in Indiana, and a case in a non-U.S. resident reported in Washington, D.C.
So are officials investigating these cases?
And what about the dog that got monkeypox?
Scientists have reported the first human-to-pet transmission of monkeypox when the dog of a gay French couple became infected after sharing a bed with its infected owners.
It is suspected that gay men, ages 44 and 27, caught the virus as a result of having sexual contact with other men during their non-monogamous relationships.
The post CDC Finally Admits Most Cases of Monkeypox Have Been Associated with Sexual Contact – Says Risk of Monkeypox in US is Low appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.