A San Francisco inmate suspected of having monkeypox tested negative for the virus, The Sheriff’s Department announced Wednesday.
Sheriff’s officials on Friday identified what they thought was its first case of the zoonotic disease when they booked a defendant at the main jail on Seventh Street. Five days later, according to Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Tara Moriarty, the test results came back negative.
As of Wednesday, no other suspected cases of monkeypox were identified in San Francisco jails. But throughout the United States, in the wake of the federal government declaring monkeypox a national emergency late last week, authorities have been concerned about the disease proliferating behind bars.