One health issue we didn’t see coming in 2022 was the spread of monkeypox, or mpox as the name of the disease has been officially changed to. Cases of the mpox virus are most often diagnosed in Africa, so it was certainly a surprise when the virus started being diagnosed all over the United States. Every state in the country was affected by the monkeypox outbreak, although some were hit much harder than others. Which states were hit the hardest? You’ll find the answer in this map visual created by NYRequirements.com that ranks the fifty U.S. states on their rate of mpox cases per capita during 2022.
Which state tops the list? New York was found to have the highest with a rate of 21.51 mpox cases for every 100,000 people. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise as New York City is one of the busiest international travel hubs in the world; and diseases can spread around the world quickly due to international travel. Although, we were surprised to see that Georgia had the second-highest rate of mpox cases in the country at a rate of 18.65 per 100,000. Which state would you guess to have the lowest rate of mpox cases? If you guessed South Dakota, you would be correct! South Dakota has only had three reported cases of mpox in 2022, which comes out to a very low rate of 0.34 per 100,000 people. Vermont had the same low number of cases with just three reported in the state. Vermont’s low rate of 0.48 per 100,000 put them just behind South Dakota for lowest rate of monkeypox cases. Thankfully the type of mpox that has been spreading across the U.S. is rarely fatal, with 99% of those infected likely to survive.
