Last year's surprise contagious virus is back.
St. Louis County has announced its first confirmed case of monkeypox for the year. In 2022, there were 42 known cases in St. Louis County.
Monkeypox has now been renamed pox because the World Health Organization considered the old name to be stigmatizing.
The clinical director of Saint Louis University's Center for Vaccine Development Dr. Sharon Frey tells us it could be dangerous and result in some residual scarring.
"Depending on where you get it, if you get it in your eyes it could cause blinding," Dr. Frey says.
So who should get an mpox vaccine?
"It would actually be recommended for those people who would be at high risk of developing the disease and that would be people who have sexual contact with others who would have mpox," Dr. Frey says.
Dr. Frey is currently enrolling adolescents between 12 and 17 into a major mpox vaccine trial -- testing the safety and immune response after two doses of the mpox vaccine in juveniles compared to adults.
"What we hope with the vaccine being used against mpox is that it either prevents disease or, if it doesn't prevent disease that it would lessen the course of the disease," she says.
The St. Louis County Health Department says to watch out for an opportunity to get a dose of the mpox vaccine at PrideFest in downtown St. Louis this weekend June 24-25 in an area called "the HIVE."
