Alaska health officials confirmed last week the first fatal case of Alaskapox, a recently discovered viral disease that experts say the public needs to be “more aware” of.
Anchorage Daily News reported that an elderly immunocompromised man from the Kenai peninsula died while undergoing treatment in late January.
State epidemiologist Julia Rogers Rogers shared in an Alaska Department of Public Health statement on Friday that the elderly man was one of only seven with Alaskapox infections .
“People should not necessarily be concerned but more aware,” Rogers said. “So we’re hoping to make clinicians more aware of what Alaskapox virus is so that they can identify signs and symptoms.”
According to the Alaska Department of Public Health, Alaskapox, a double-stranded-DNA virus, comes from the same genus as smallpox, monkeypox, and cowpox. It was first identified in an adult in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2015.
The disease is said to be most commonly found in small mammals, like voles and shrews.