, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. It is most common in younger to middle-aged aged groups, and less common in children and older individuals. As of August 21, only 17 children younger than 15 have been diagnosed with monkeypox in the US, and women make up fewer than 1.5% of cases.
In addition to the reassuring data about children and monkeypox, the CDC released laboratory testing data, a behavioral survey of MSM, patient data on the antiviral medicationThough the number of positive monkeypox tests have continued to rise, the test-positivity rates have declined over the past month, data show. Since July 16, the positivity rate has dipped from 54% to 23%.
The data also show that case numbers continue to grow in the United States, whereas in other countries that identified casesthe US — Spain, the United Kingdom, and France, for example — cases have been leveling off, noted Gandhi. More detailed demographic data showed that Black, Hispanic, or Latinx individuals make up an increasing proportion of cases in the United States. In May, 71% of people with reported monkeypox infection were White and 29% were Black. For the week of August 8-14, about a third of monkeypox cases were in White people, 32% were in Hispanic or Latinx people, and 33% were in Black people.