UPDATED: 22:53 EDT, 16 July 2021
The virus spreads via respiratory droplets in the air, and, fortunately, people on the planes the man rode were required to wear masks due to COVID-19 protocols.
'Laboratory testing at CDC showed the patient is infected with a strain of monkeypox most commonly seen in parts of West Africa, including Nigeria,' the CDC wrote in a news release on Friday.
'Monkeypox is a rare but potentially serious viral illness that typically begins with flu-like illness and swelling of the lymph nodes and progresses to a widespread rash on the face and body,' according to the CDC.
'Most infections last two to four weeks. Monkeypox is in the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes a milder infection.'
'We have confidence in the federal, state and local medical professionals who are working to ensure that this virus is contained and that the patient is treated with the utmost care,' Eric Johnson, mayor of Dallas, said in a statement on the matter.
Around 10 percent of cases of monkeypox end in death, though the strain the man has is less severe, and often has a one percent chance of death.
Six previous cases of monkeypox from around the world have been tied to travelers returning home from Nigeria.
Experts are not sure of the true origin of 'monkeypox'.
The virus was first discovered in 1958 in crab-eating macaque monkeys.
The first ever case detected in humans was in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
It has since been discovered in many central and western African nations.
It is believed that the virus transmits from animals to humans when the animal bites of scratches a person.
It can also spread person-to-person by respiratory droplets in the air - similar to the way humans spread COVID to each other.
The disease has largely vanished, until a 2003 flare-up in the United States saw the virus return to humans.
The identity of the man who contracted the virus has not been revealed, and his case is not related to any other case of human monkeypox detected in recent years.
There are no specific treatments or vaccines available for the virus, though the smallpox vaccine is believed to have helped make it a non-problem in humans for many years.
Antiviral agents against the disease are currently being explored, though, according to the World Health Organization.
Other cases of monkeypox were detected in Wales last month, when at least two people came down with the virus in the northern part of the country.
The first ever cases of monkeypox in the United Kingdom were detected in 2018.
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