- More than 100 cases of
monkeypox have been detected worldwide in the past month, including in the US. - Monkeypox symptoms can be confused with those of
chickenpox .
Inger Damon, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, $4 "Healthcare providers should be alert to any rash that has features typical of monkeypox. We're asking the public to contact their healthcare provider if they have a new rash and are concerned about monkeypox."
But identifying a monkeypox rash is not always easy.
Although they are caused by different types of viruses, the symptoms of monkeypox are similar to those of chickenpox — and it can be tricky to tell between the two without a test.
In Greece, for example, local media $4that the country's first suspected monkeypox case tested positive for chickenpox and not monkeypox.
Symptoms of monkeypox can also be compared with
Monkeypox, however, is generally milder than smallpox, $4 getting better on their own within two to four weeks. Monkeypox is less contagious than smallpox was and less fatal, according to the WHO.
The main difference between the symptoms of smallpox and monkeypox is swollen lymph nodes or "lymphadenopathy" — monkeypox causes lymph nodes to swell while smallpox does not, $4
Here are the symptoms associated with monkeypox and how they compare with chickenpox and smallpox.