Evidence of the monkeypox virus has proven up in Bay Area wastewater since mid-June, indicating the presence of an infection, in accordance with data from Stanford University’s Sewer Coronavirus Alert Network (SCAN).
Stanford’s SCAN tracks the presence of a variety of viruses in wastewater, together with SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and human metapneumovirus. Monkeypox is the newest addition. The virus has been detected in 10 out of 11 sewersheds that Stanford researchers are finding out, together with Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, San Jose, Gilroy, Stanford, Silicon Valley Clean Water (in San Mateo County), Davis, Sacramento and two sewersheds in San Francisco, in accordance with the data. Only the University of California, Davis got here up destructive to date.
Monkeypox is a uncommon virus that causes fever, headache, muscle aches and backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills, exhaustion and a pimple-like itchy or painful rash with pustules on the face, inside the mouth and on different components of the physique. The rash goes by completely different levels and an individual stays contagious till the rash dries up and disappears. The sickness usually lasts two to 4 weeks, in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The virus is associated to smallpox but it surely is not the identical as chickenpox, in accordance with the CDC. It is unfold by shut contact, similar to touching, and in explicit by sexual exercise. Recent circumstances have been amongst males who have been intimate with different males, though it is not thought of a sexually transmitted illness, in accordance with the CDC.
The SCAN group is accumulating the DNA that is a part of the virus. They usually are not detecting dwell, infectious viruses, simply items of their genetic materials, stated Alexandria Boehm, professor at Stanford’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, which collectively runs the SCAN challenge with Marlene Wolfe, assistant professor of Environmental Health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.
Palo Alto’s sewershed, which serves Palo Alto, Mountain View, East Palo Alto, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, confirmed detectable ranges of DNA beginning July 15 and its highest spike to date on July 17. It once more was exhibiting an increase as of July 20, in accordance with the data.
The Silicon Valley Clean Water sewershed, which serves the cities of Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City and the West Bay Sanitary District, confirmed the presence of monkeypox on July 21. Codiga (Stanford), which is a part of the Palo Alto sewershed, confirmed a detection on July 19, and Sunnyvale confirmed detections on July 9 and July 17.
The San Francisco, Sacramento and San Jose sewersheds have been the hot spots, in accordance with the data.
The presence of monkeypox in Santa Clara County additionally is corroborated by the Santa Clara County Public Health Department. As of July 21, the county confirmed 31 circumstances, in accordance with its on-line dashboard.
It’s doubtless monkeypox DNA can be current in wastewater of different giant metropolitan areas, Boehm stated.
Given SCAN’s experiences working with wastewater for profitable surveillance for RSV and influenza, in addition to COVID-19 and its variants, Boehm stated it isn’t shocking that an rising pathogen goal like monkeypox DNA is showing in the wastewater.
“(Monkeypox) DNA has been documented in a number of human excretions of infected patients, including urine and feces, all which end up in wastewater. It is encouraging to have evidence that this tool (wastewater surveillance) can provide community-level information on the spread of monkeypox,” she stated in an e mail on Monday.
“At the present time, we cannot say how many cases are in the sewersheds with positive detections except to say when we have detected monkeypox DNA it indicates there is at least one person in the sewershed using the sewerage collection system. It will be useful to look at trends in the concentrations as we collect more data and compare those with trends in reported MPX (monkeypox) cases.”
On July 23, the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global health emergency. As of July 25, there are 16,836 confirmed circumstances worldwide and three,487 in the United States, in accordance with the CDC. California is the second high state with 356 circumstances; it is solely surpassed by New York, which has 990 circumstances.