DETROIT (WXYZ) — Detroit Health Department officials say a second case of monkeypox has been confirmed in the city, making for the third confirmed case in the metro area.
"The phase we're in right now is containment. We don't want monkeypox to become an endemic in the state of Michigan or in the United States,” said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, the state's chief medical officer.
Detroit health officials say an event held on June 26 in Midtown may have exposed dozens of people to the virus.
At this time, WXYZ will not identify the name of the bar and event to allow the department to conduct contact tracing and testing.
According to Denise Fair Rezo, Detroit’s health director, more than 100 people have already been notified by phone or email that they were exposed to the virus at the event.
Video: More information about monkeypox
Symptoms of moneypox include fever, headache, flu and eventually rash and sores.
The good news is monkeypox is not as contagious as COVID-19, officials say.
When describing the risk of contracting the virus, Bagdasarian says, “If you're going to the grocery store, if you're walking in an indoor mall, you are not at risk of contracting monkeypox from those types of encounters. We're really talking about closer encounters, skin to skin contact, contact with infected lesions or contaminated materials.”
On the other hand, people at this Detroit event included gay men, who are in a high risk group.
”And we do know that our MSM communities are men who have sex with men. (These) communities have had higher proportions of these cases, but I do want to just remind your viewers that this is not about who you are. This is about higher risk activities,” Bagdasarian added.
Two vaccines are available to treat monkeypox within four days of exposure and that can mitigate the disease.
But get this, Detroit and the state of Michigan do not have the vaccine.
"The way it's working is when we have a case, we are working with our federal partners and asking for doses from that federal stockpile. So the state of Michigan doesn't have a cache of vaccines ourselves right now,” Bagdasarian said of the state’s ability to access vaccines to treat the virus.
In the first case a couple of weeks ago, the person who contracted it had traveled overseas.
Health officials say they’re still studying to find out the origin of these two new cases.
More information on monkeybox can be found on the CDC's website.
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