An elderly Fairbanks man is Alaska’s first smallpox death. It is a viral infection that scientists have recently discovered.
The man recorded as Alaska’s first smallpox death was one of a total of seven patients, including children. All of them live in the Fairbanks area, had a mild form of the disease and did not need treatment.
The elderly man died at the end of January after hospitalization. He came from the Kenai Peninsula, in the south of Alaska. He was taking drugs that weaken the immune system (immunosuppressants) and this may have contributed to the severity of the smallpox he developed.
Chance stuck the blessing from a cat. He himself was not sure how he got infected. He mentioned, however, that he was taking care of a stray cat in the yard of his house and she at some point scratched him. Alaskan pox, he developed after this incident and believed that this was the source of his infection.
Last September the unfortunate man had a red lump on his right armpit. The doctor gave him antibiotics, but his condition was getting worse. He gradually developed increasing pain in the area of the lump and shoulder, as well as severe fatigue.
When the range of motion in his right arm was affected, he was taken to an Anchorage hospital. There he informed the doctors that he also had skin lesions, which resembled those of Alaskan smallpox.
Although he initially responded to IV treatment, the skin wounds were slow to heal. In addition, he developed kidney failure and other systemic complications, which eventually cost him his life.
What is Alaskan pox
The disease is caused by a virus of the genus Orthopoxvirus. To the same genus belongs the virus of monkey pox (mpox) and of common pox (variola) which harmed humanity for centuries, until it was eradicated in the 1970s with the help of vaccines.
Alaska pox was first identified in 2015 in an adult with a characteristic localized rash and swollen lymph nodes.
Alaska poxvirus (AKPV) appears to be circulating in small mammals in that state. It has been found, for example, in red-backed voles and shrews, according to the Alaska Department of Public Health.
Those suffering from the disease had one or more sores on the skin. Many initially thought they had been bitten by a spider or other insect. But later they presented other symptoms such as:
Swollen lymph nodes
Muscle or joint pain
These symptoms resolved in six of the seven without treatment, in about 2 weeks.
Experts estimate that apart from these incidents there are others, which, however, went unnoticed.
Source: iatropedia.gr
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