A “severely immunocompromised” individual in California was confirmed to have died of monkeypox on Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Los Angeles Department of Public Health, marking the first verified U.S. death from the virus. The Los Angeles County resident was hospitalized, the CDC said, adding that no other public information would be shared for privacy reasons. The death of a person diagnosed with monkeypox was reported in Texas late last month, but officials there had yet to confirm the link as of Monday. There are currently more than 21,000 monkeypox cases in the United States, according to health officials, though hospitalizations remain rare. California has confirmed roughly 4,300 cases, the most of any individual state. A downward trend in infections has been recorded in recent weeks, according to health officials, who were careful to warn against opening “the door to complacency,” as Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general, put it last week.
