15 per cent death rate, severe lesions reported in patients with mpox alongside advanced HIV: study – CBC
Feb 22, 2023
During Canada’s unprecedented mpox outbreak last summer, Montreal physician Dr. Antoine Cloutier-Blais noticed a concerning trend: Patients co-infected with advanced HIV were reporting lesions across their bodies, and systemic mpox symptoms.
“It was difficult at that time to confirm that suspicion with the data we had,” he said.
Now, new research in the Lancet medical journal backs up Cloutier-Blais’ early concerns.
The paper, a case study on mpox in individuals with advanced HIV infection, details an aggressive and serious form of the illness formerly known as monkeypox — at times involving skin cell death within lesions, nodules in the lungs, sepsis, and a high rate of death.
This form of mpox appears to be a “very severe skin and mucosal infection with high rates of sepsis and very severe lung complications,” said study author Dr. Chloe Orkin, a professor of HIV/AIDS medicine at Queen Mary University of London, in an email to CBC News.
