This Thursday, August 4, in the midst of the health crisis that the world is experiencing due to the exponential increase in the so-called monkeypox, health authorities in the United States have declared this disease a public health emergency throughout the territory of your country.
This decision is known just hours after several of the states of that country decided, autonomously, to decree said emergency in each of their territories due to the increase in detected cases of the disease that, According to the most recent WHO report, it is already present in about 87 countries around the world, with Guatemala, in Central America, being the one that most recently joined the list.
The decision of the Biden administration was communicated through the Secretary of Health and Human Services of the United States, headed by official Xavier Becerra, and is consolidated in a measure that will allow the health authorities of that country the possibility of allocating and mobilize more resources to combat the disease which has the United States as one of the main focuses of the current epidemiological wave.
This declaration of a health emergency throughout the United States occurs at a time when the same reports have shown the rapid and exponential growth of the disease within that country, where the number of infected is close to 6,000 cases since the detection of the first episode last May in Boston, in a wave that initially began in Europe, with Portugal and the United Kingdom as the main affected; however, after arriving in North America, the virus, characterized by the appearance of painful skin rashes, has spread massively in territories such as Canada and the USA.
Precisely, at the current juncture, the United States is considered the territory most affected by the disease, which it has had in male populations; especially in those that have relationships with individuals of the same gender, its broader focus.
Within the United States, according to reports, the main outbreaks of the disease are concentrated in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nueva York, Texas y Washington D.C.
According to the media in that country, in the efforts that, until now, the United States had undertaken to contain the disease, vaccination has been adopted as a strategy, through the distribution and application of nearly 600,000 doses, which are have essentially been allocated to the population considered to be at greatest risk.
Regarding the particularities of this wave of the virus, originally detected in the 1970s in Africa, health authorities in the United States have reported that the disease is present in at least 48 of the 50 states that make up the American Union, including the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Capital District, Washington.
Despite the fact that the health authorities have made extreme efforts to identify cases of monkeypox in the United States, some local media have reported that the official record of the disease delivered in the official reports could be tainted by underreporting, in Therefore, these exams are only carried out when an advanced stage of the disease is evident, so that patients in ‘early stages’ of the virus, they could still be outside the statistics and preventative actions.
Although in countries such as India, Brazil, Spain, among others (mostly in Africa), where the disease occurs, deaths associated with cases of contagion have already been registered, So far, in the United States, there is no knowledge of a similar event.
Regarding the decision adopted by the federal authorities this Thursday, this is presented after, from various sectors of society, including some within Congress, critical paths were raised against the Biden government, for what they have described as a response delayed, meanwhile, from the national authorities, it had been suggested that the strategy required, for the time being, greater individual action by the states, calling in turn for Congress to approve a higher budget allocation to face the epidemiological wave.
Meanwhile, autonomously, three of the states most affected by the current wave of monkeypox;, New York, Illinois and California had opted, from their authorities, for the state declaration of the emergency.
Faced with this disease, and despite the fact that most of the information that circulates has associated its spread with sexual practices, The WHO has specified that this is not an STD, or sexually transmitted disease, pointing out that the virus also has diffusion dynamics through direct contact with infected people, suggesting scenarios of spread through hugs, kisses, as well as with the contact with contaminated clothing, towels and sheets.
According to statistics from the World Health Organization, which decreed a global emergency at the end of last July, although there is a wide range of countries that currently have positive cases of contagion, The United States contains one in four infected in the world.