Sacramento-area Monkeypox patient criticizes response to outbreak
SACRAMENTO – Public health officials have reported that Sacramento County has 38 suspected cases of monkeypox, but there are concerns the virus spread is much higher.
A CBS13 viewer is sharing his journey of how it took him five days to get his test results back. The man is speaking out on the condition of anonymity because he is worried he will be stigmatized for coming forward as a gay man.
Yet, the bigger problem for him is the staggering slow response to the monkeypox outbreak. Ten days ago, he noticed something was wrong.
"I knew something wasn't right when I had these unexplained skin lesions," he said.
The Sacramento County man also experienced fatigue, sweats, headaches and body aches. Then, it went away.
"I thought I had a 24-hour bug," he said.
Within two days, he said, the lesions returned.
The patient said he was told to expect test results within 72 hours after visiting an emergency room Saturday. When he did not hear anything, he repeatedly called the county demanding answers.
He learned he tested positive Wednesday.
Dr. Ben Balatbat, chief medical officer of One Community Health, believes more could be done to get a handle on the outbreak. Testing is limited, though he sees some promising signs in terms of test results.
"Just in the last several days, we have been able to utilize commercial laboratories which will hopefully increase our ability to test and increase the turnaround," he said.
Dr. Balatbat said a quicker turnaround means immediate contact tracing.
For days, the anonymous patient remained in the dark about his results.
"They weren't treating this as seriously as I was," he said.
Sacramento County's Department of Health Services said it would not comment on a specific case. However, it did explain how staff follows up with all reported cases while monitoring symptoms but did not elaborate on the average wait time for test results.
"It is not enough," the patient said.
Meanwhile, state public health officials said they are providing staff support to health departments during the outbreak for case investigations and contact tracing.
They also said testing capacity has increased significantly.
