Dermatology and Monkeypox: What You Need to Know
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Dermatologists are urging colleagues to be on the lookout for monkeypox and cautioning them to not miss cases that might appear to be something else. Diagnosing cases "can be hard and folks should keep a very open mind and consider monkeypox virus," said Misha Rosenbach, MD, a University of Pennsylvania dermatologist and member of the American Academy of Dermatology's ad hoc task force to develop monkeypox content. Although it's named after a primate, it turns out that monkeypox is quite the copycat. As dermatologists have learned, its lesions can look like those caused by a long list of other diseases including herpes, varicella, and syphilis. In small numbers, they can even appear to be insect bites.
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@priya-0 To make things more complicated, a patient can have one or two lesions – or dozens. They often cluster in the anogenital area, likely reflecting transmission via sexual intercourse, unlike previous outbreaks in which lesions appeared all over the body.