US medical workers did not contract monkeypox

Preliminary lab tests indicate that two people who fell sick after being exposed to patients infected with the monkeypox virus have not contracted the illness.

The results of preliminary blood tests on the two medical workers came back negative for the disease, easing fears that the potentially deadly virus was being spread by human-to-human transmission.

Officials at the Wisconsin Department of Health and Human Services said they were waiting on a readout of secondary blood tests for final confirmation.

Some 82 people in eight states are thought to have been infected by the virus in this outbreak of monkeypox - the first such outbreak in the western hemisphere.