New mpox infections have ticked up. Nashville health officials are recommending vaccines.

The viral infection mpox has made a small comeback in Tennessee, so public health officials are again recommending the vaccine.

The mpox outbreak started in 2022, and it was particularly rough that summer. Nationwide transmission peaked in early August that year, with more than 400 cases reported daily. It died down pretty quickly after a successful vaccine rollout. Throughout 2023, daily case counts hovered in the single digits.

But Metro Public Health’s nursing and clinical director, Laura Varnier, said Tennessee cases started cropping up again around Thanksgiving.

“We started to see about six cases come in in the previous two weeks,” she said. “That was more cases than we’d seen in the last six months.”

That isn’t many, but because that virus isn’t circulating in the United States like COVID-19 or the flu, even one case is considered an outbreak.

The virus causes flu-like symptoms, but the most recognizable are rashes or blisters. Like many other infections that can spread sexually, mpox can present differently person to person.

“It can be on your hands, your feet, your genitals, your anus,” Varnier said. “Any type of rash that is concerning. If you have a new partner or if anything has changed in your sexual partners’ history, we would want to make sure that you’re seen.”

About 400 cases have been reported in Tennessee since the recent outbreak began last year, according to the CDC.

The virus can spread through a few different forms of contact, but sexual contact has become one of the most common. And transmission has become most common among gay and bisexual men. That’s why they are one of the groups considered at risk.

Metro Public Health offers screening, testing and vaccines for the virus.

“It’s two doses given 28 days apart,” Varnier said. “And for anyone that thinks that they’re at a high risk, they can come in and walk into our clinic any time Monday through Friday and get their first dose. And we’ll see them a month later for their second.”

Unlike the COVID-19 and flu shots, the mpox shots don’t require an annual booster, she said. If someone has already gotten both vaccines, they don’t need another.