Pa. colleges plan monkeypox education, testing to prevent virus outbreak on campus – PennLive

Pennsylvania colleges are hoping their plans to educate students about monkeypox will help prevent an outbreak of this virus on their campuses. Courtesy of Centers for Disease ControlCenter for Disease Control (CDC)
Pennsylvania has at least 353 monkeypox cases as of Tuesday, according to federal data, and as students return to school the virus is now beginning to turn up on college campuses. Officials at Bucknell and West Chester universities are reporting one case each.
Colleges are easy places for monkeypox to spread, but school administrators in Pennsylvania say they are less worried about monkeypox than they were about COVID-19. This fall, several universities say they are planning to handle the virus by educating their students and following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Officials at six public and private colleges and universities in Pennsylvania who responded to PennLive said that unless the situation changes dramatically, canceling in-person classes because of monkeypox is not on the table.
Dr. Thomas Trojian, the assistant clinical director for Temple University’s student health services, said there was “no discussion” at Temple about stopping any in-person classes or events.
“What we know today is that it has to be [spread through] close contact,” Trojian said. “It’s not common for people to be asymptomatic and passing it on and it’s not something that you’re going to get from incidental contact.”
Monkeypox spreads primarily through skin-to-skin contact and is easy to detect, according to the CDC. It symptoms include fever, muscle aches and fatigue and eventually a rash characterized by raised fluid-filled bumps.
While the virus outbreak so far in the United States has primarily been seen among men having sex with other men, college health officials are sensitive to the need to avoid stigmatizing sexual behavior in talking about monkeypox.
The American College Health Association said in a statement to the Washington Post: “Anyone can get monkeypox, so campuses should communicate it as a public health concern for all; however, campus communications can be tailored to different audiences to be most effective. No matter the audience, it is important that communications convey compassion, reduce stigma and address equity.”
“We recognize that anybody and everybody is at risk, regardless of gender or sexual orientation,” Lynn R. Goldman, dean of public health at George Washington University told the Post.
The CDC guidelines for preventing spread recommend washing your hands often and avoiding skin-to-skin contact or sexual activities with people who have a rash that may be monkeypox.
The CDC also recommends avoiding contact with people who have monkeypox. People who live in congregate living settings, like dorms, and test positive for monkeypox should isolate for two to four weeks.
The colleges and universities PennLive contacted said their primary goal this fall is communicating this information to students.
The schools also have plans for helping students get tested for monkeypox, often in cooperation with local hospitals and health departments. West Chester University said it has “numerous monkeypox test kits on hand” and Penn State said it is working with the Pennsylvania Department of Health to offer monkeypox testing.
The universities all mentioned vaccinating students who were exposed to monkeypox, although none have been approved to provide those vaccines yet.
If students are exposed to monkeypox or have monkeypox symptoms, most colleges will require them to be tested and go into isolation, either on campus or at their place of residence.
Bucknell said it will quarantine students while they wait for their test results and then send students home or to off-campus residences if they test positive.
Beyond these policies, universities don’t plan to change much. The social distancing and limited gathering policies that schools implemented for COVID-19 don’t make much sense for monkeypox, since it’s spread through contact rather than air.
The universities declined to get into details about their athletic departments’ plans, but since the CDC guidelines make no mention of limiting large gatherings, there likely won’t be much change that would affect those activities.
Monkeypox was discovered in lab monkeys in 1958 and the first human cases were found in 1970. It came to the United States in 2003 in a shipment of exotic African rodents, eventually transferring to prairie dogs and then humans, according to a fact sheet from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
On Aug. 5, the U.S. declared monkeypox a public health emergency, freeing up federal funding and resources to fight the virus. As of Tuesday, there were 12,689 cases in the United States with reported cases in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York and Texas accounting for 70% of the total, according to the CDC.
As of Tuesday, ABC News reports at least eight children have tested positive for the virus. Also, the New York Post reported this week an Italian greyhound dog belonging to a French couple was recently confirmed to have contracted monkeypox from them. As a result, officials are requesting anyone infected or at-risk quarantine away from their animals.
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