Two-year-old tests presumptively positive for monkeypox: 'This is a rare case'

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo announced that a 2-year-old child tested presumptively positive for monkeypox on Tuesday, Houston-based media outlets reported.

According to Hidalgo, Houston NBC affiliate KPRC reported, it’s the county’s first presumptive positive child case and Texas’ seventh. 

“This is a rare case,” the chief executive of the state’s largest county said, the station reported. “This would be, as best we know, the seventh case in the country in a child, the only case of monkeypox of a child in the entire state of Texas.”

It’s unknown how the child contracted the illness, but family members have helped the county start the contact tracing process, KPRC reported.

Hidalgo added that the young patient is asymptomatic with a rash and the vaccine is available to anyone who had close contact, according to the station.

The station reported that vaccine eligibility has been expanded to include children six months old and older.

Houston ABC affiliate KTRK reported that the child is classified as presumed positive until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms the test.

It could take up to a week for the results to come in, according to KTRK.

Hidalgo, a Democrat, said that the development isn’t totally surprising since “anyone can get this virus,” Houston CBS affiliate KHOU reported.

"This is a rare case . . . as best we know,” she said, per KHOU.

Citing The Associated Press (AP), ABC News reported that the World Health Organization (WHO), which had declared monkeypox a public health emergency, is planning to rename the virus in response to stigmatization concerns.  

The U.S. declared its outbreak a national emergency earlier this month, per the report.