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Alaska health officials have identified the first known Alaskapox death linked to a recently discovered virus.
In the year Seven Alaskapox infections have been reported since its discovery in 2015, according to the state Department of Health. The most recent case was identified in an elderly man who died last month.
Department of Health in A Release last week.
The man had a weakened immune system due to cancer treatment, which contributed to the severity of the disease, officials said.
Because the virus is found primarily in small mammals in Alaska, the disease is often mild and infection is rare in humans, experts say.
“Six out of seven cases “They’re mild and self-limited, so the patient doesn’t even need any help from a health care provider,” said Dr. Joe McLaughlin, state epidemiologist and chief of the Alaska Division of Epidemiology at the Alaska Department of Health.
There is still much that is unknown about the virus, McLaughlin said, including how it is transmitted from animals to humans and how long it lasts.
Alaskapox was discovered recently, but McLaughlin says the virus exists Chronic Among small mammals in Alaska, red-backed voles and shrews regularly infect other rodents such as red squirrels.
The virus is an orthodox virus. The genus, which includes well-known viruses such as smallpox and empox, often infects mammals and causes skin lesions.
McLaughlin notes that Alaskapox is an “Old World” virus commonly found in Africa, Asia, and Europe.
“This virus may have existed in Alaska for hundreds, if not thousands, of years,” he said.
However, the number of cases of Alaskapox that have come to light does not mean that the virus has become more prevalent in the state’s small mammals in recent years.
“What has changed is the clinical perception and the public perception that Alaskapox is a possible virus,” McLaughlin said. “The cases may have occurred before 2015 and were only subclinical or mildly clinical and may have gone undiagnosed.
Although it’s unclear how long the virus has been circulating in the state, the infection follows contact with animals, said Dr. Julia Rogers, an epidemiologist. Epidemic Intelligence Service At the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, assigned to the Alaska Department of Health.
“These individuals got it through their interactions with animals,” she said.
The first case of Alaskapox was discovered in July 2015 in a woman who lived near Fairbanks in central Alaska, according to the state health department. Since then, five more cases have been reported in the Fairbanks area.
The most recent case — the first known fatality from Alaska pox — is also the first outside of Fairbanks. It was found about 500 miles south of the Kenai Peninsula, officials said.
This suggests that Alaskapox is more geographically widespread than previously thought.
“We were able to sequence the virus from this patient’s case, and it showed a difference between this case and the collection of cases we were able to sequence from Fairbanks,” Rogers said.
However, she added, the latest finding may be due to geographic differences in the virus and not because the virus was “carried out of the Fairbanks area.”
None of the seven people diagnosed with Alaskapox had recently traveled out of the state or the country, and no cases have been reported outside of Alaska, experts said.
More sampling of affected animal species is needed to fully understand how the virus is transmitted from animals to humans, Rogers said, but contact with small mammals and pets may play a role.
The dead man was tending to a forested area and a stray cat to hunt small mammals, health officials said.
“A stray cat would occasionally come into the house, and he would play with the cat, and he would pet it frequently,” McLaughlin said.
The Alaska Department of Health said scratches from the cat were a “potential source of infection” in this case.
“This follows patterns of evidence for other Old World orthopoxviruses,” McLaughlin added. “A traumatic event usually introduces infection from pets to humans.”
Alaskapox symptoms and treatment
Aside from the recent cases, all Alaskapox patients have had a mild illness that resolves on its own after a few weeks, according to the state health department.
Symptoms include one or more skin lesions that initially look like a spider bite, McLaughlin says. Swollen lymph nodes, muscle aches, and fever may also occur.
If there is a series or individual symptoms that follow such a case definition and you have no other known cause or no known disease contributing to those symptoms, you should definitely go to your health care provider. They can do more evaluation and some testing,” Rogers said.
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People with weakened immune systems may experience more severe symptoms, health officials said. The person who died of Alaskapox had slow-healing wounds, malnutrition, acute kidney failure, and respiratory problems.
Antiviral and immune globulin treatments may be prescribed, McLaughlin says.
Although some orthopoxviruses can be spread between people through direct contact with skin lesions, there is no evidence that a person with alaskapox can spread it to another person, experts said.
“People outside of Alaska don’t need to worry,” McLaughlin said. “People in Alaska need to know that it’s an infection they can get.”