A person in New Hampshire is the first in the state and third in the United States to contract a variant of the viral disease mpox, health officials said Friday.
Mpox, originally known as monkeypox, causes an infectious rash that's spread through close physical contact with an infectious person or items they used — not through the air — and there's no evidence of person-to-person spread in New Hampshire or the United States, according to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services announcement.
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The person diagnosed with mpox in New Hampshire has clade I mpox, one of two clades, or genetic types, of the virus. The variety at the center of a 2022 outbreak in the U.S. was clade II, but clade I has been circulating in central and eastern Africa, health officials said.
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The case of clade I mpox in New Hampshire is in a person in Merrimack County who recently traveled to eastern Africa, health officials said, without sharing more details about them — health privacy laws protect patients' identities. No public locations have been identified as places where others may have been exposed to mpox, officials said, as they continue to work to identify anyone who may have had close contact with the person.
“The mpox virus is spread primarily through direct physical contact with someone who has mpox and has developed an infectious skin rash,” said State Epidemiologist Dr. Benjamin Chan in a statement. “Public Health is working to identify and notify people who had close contact with the individual, so we can connect them with preventive vaccination and help them to monitor for symptoms of mpox.”
Anyone with questions about mpox was encouraged to contact the Department of Health and Human Services at 603-271-4496.
