Monkeypox Has Subsided. Now It’s Time to Watch for the Complications

An upsurge in cases of monkeypox earlier this year displaced mainstream media coverage of COVID-19—for a while, anyway. Now that new cases have slowed, that attention has shifted back to concerns for a resurgence of the pandemic and an accompanying increase in other respiratory viruses. Urgent care providers should be aware that certain complications of monkeypox linger, though, as noted in an article just published by JAMA Neurology. Such vigilance could actually aid in retrospective identification of patients who may have had monkeypox and not known it. Unexplained encephalitis, transverse myelitis, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, postvaccinal encephalomyelitis, headaches, mood disturbances, and seizures could all be attributed to monkeypox infection. In short, the authors note, “monkeypox should be considered in high-risk populations who present with neurologic syndromes.”