Infected by cat? First death after infection with novel Alaskapox virus. So far, six cases of the novel virus have been reported in people in Alaska.
The virus was first detected in 2015 in the Fairbanks region, the second largest city in the US state of Alaska. Like the monkeypox virus and cowpox virus, it is one of the orthopoxviruses. Many of these viruses are zoonoses. The viruses can therefore be transmitted from animals to humans or vice versa.