Alaska health officials confirmed the state’s first fatal case of Alaskapox — a recently discovered viral disease.
An elderly immunocompromised man from the Kenai peninsula, south of Anchorage, died while undergoing treatment in late January, the Anchorage Daily News reported .
He is one of only seven reported Alaskapox infections, the Alaska Department of Public Health said in an announcement on Friday .
“People should not necessarily be concerned but more aware,” said Julia Rogers, a state epidemiologist. “So we’re hoping to make clinicians more aware of what Alaskapox virus is, so that they can identify signs and symptoms.”
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The double-stranded-DNA virus, which comes from the same genus as smallpox, monkeypox and cowpox, was first identified in an adult in Fairbanks, Alaska in 2015. It is most common in small mammals, like voles shrews.
The fatal case, the first identified outside of Alaska’s interior, took months to diagnose, as Alaskapox cases had previously only shown mild symptoms in patients — typically a localized rash and swollen lymph nodes.