Monkeypox: Report Reveals Infection Could Cause Heart Injury
The CDC’s 2022 monkeypox global map shows that 100 countries have reported 53,027 confirmed cases, with 93 of the countries said to be non-endemic.
ByMariam Ileyemi
As the global cases of the current monkeypox outbreak surpass 50,000, a new international study has revealed that the virus may potentially cause heart injury in some patients.
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Published in the Journals of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), the study found that a 31-year-old man with a confirmed monkeypox infection developed acute myocarditis days after showing symptoms.
Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle, which, according to the study, was associated with smallpox infections “a genetically related but more aggressive virus” in the past.
The study found the patient presented to the health clinic with a five-day history of symptoms, including malaise, myalgia, fever and multiple swollen lesions on the face, hands and genitalia.
The 2022 monkeypox global map by the CDC shows that 100 countries have reported a total of 53,027 confirmed cases, with 93 of the countries described as non-endemic to the virus.
More findings
After a PCR swab sample of a skin lesion was conducted, the study confirmed that the patient had a positive monkeypox infection.
The patient was said to have returned to the emergency department three days later, reporting chest tightness radiating through his left arm and “was admitted to an intensive care unit under airway isolation, with the clinical suspicion of acute myocarditis.”
Titled; “Acute Myocarditis –a new manifestation of Monkeypox infection?”, the study also highlighted cardiac involvement as a potential complication associated with monkeypox infection.
“Our patient presented with acute myocarditis temporally related to the current monkeypox infection, a virus closely related to others that already have an established direct or indirect association with cardiac tissue injury”, the report noted.
It added that further research is needed to identify the relationship between monkeypox and heart injury.
In June 2022, PREMIUM TIMES reported how a similar report published by The Lancet Medical Journal stated that monkeypox infection can cause blindness.
About Monkeypox
According to WHO, the Monkeypox virus was first discovered in laboratory monkeys — hence the name — in a Copenhagen research facility in 1958.
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Human Monkeypox was first identified 12 years later in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a nine-month-old boy in a region where smallpox had been eliminated in 1968.
Since 1970, human cases of Monkeypox have been reported in 11 African countries: Benin, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.
In 2003, the first Monkeypox outbreak outside of Africa was in the United States of America and was linked to contact with infected pet prairie dogs.
The current monkeypox outbreak which started in May 2022 has continued to spread across non-endemic countries.
