Not every skin rash in a returning adult male traveler is monkeypox

Mazin Barry; Layan Akkielah; Jaffar A Al-Tawfiq; Ziad A Memish

doi:10.1016/j.tmaid.2022.102432

Not every skin rash in a returning adult male traveler is monkeypox

Travel Med Infect Dis. 2022 Nov-Dec:50:102432. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2022.102432. Epub 2022 Sep 6.

Authors

Mazin Barry¹, Layan Akkielah², Jaffar A Al-Tawfiq³, Ziad A Memish⁴

Affiliations

¹ Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Division of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada. Electronic address: [email protected].
² Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Electronic address: [email protected].
³ Infectious Disease Unit, Specialty Internal Medicine, and Quality and Patient Safety Department, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; Department of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA; Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
⁴ King Saud Medical City, Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia; College of Medicine, Al-Faisal University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].

Abstract

In May 2022, several European countries including Spain reported cluster of monkeypox cases with no apparent travel to endemic areas. We report a suspected case of monkeypox in Saudi Arabia in a healthy 30-year-old man who returned from Spain and the Netherlands with fever and rash for six days duration during the same time period of the outbreak, he was suspected to have monkeypox but was ultimately diagnosed with chickenpox.

Keywords: Chickenpox; Monkeypox; Saudi Arabia; Spain; Traveler; VZV.

Publication types

Case Reports

MeSH terms

Adult
Chickenpox* / epidemiology
Disease Outbreaks
Exanthema* / diagnosis
Humans
Male
Mpox, Monkeypox* / diagnosis
Mpox, Monkeypox* / epidemiology
Travel