WORCESTER, Mass.—Although no cases of monkeypox have been reported in Worcester, it’s now on the radar of local health leaders.

“It’s controllable, but we need to be able to get the message out into the community that it’s spreading slowly, but it’s here,” Worcester’s Commissioner of Health and Human Services Dr. Matilde Castiel said.

The city said as of Tuesday, more than 900 cases of the rare virus have been reported across the country, with 44 of them here in Massachusetts.

Castiel said while it’s nowhere near an emergency yet, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

“I think the main idea of all of this is to educate our community about things that are out there in the community so they’re aware, and they can take precautions for the things that are there,” she said.

Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes and exhaustion. The CDC said monkeypox can lead to mild and severe illness, with people experiencing flu-like symptoms. But it also can lead to a rash with blisters.

“That contact with the fluid is what transmits it to one to another,” Castiel said. “You can have them in your mouth, you can have it in different parts of your body.

Castiel said people with the virus are out for roughly two weeks. 

Nobody in the nation has died from the virus during this outbreak, but it’s still not something to take lightly. 

Although the vaccine is not as easy to find as others, Castiel said there are ways to get one.

“It’s harder just because it’s in the process of coming out. But we can get that. We can certainly appeal to the state that we want it, and there are places where you can go to go get it. They’ll evaluate you and then you can go get it,” she said.

On Wednesday, the CDC said Quest Diagnostics will do testing for monkeypox as they’ve just developed a real-time PCR test. Those tests are now available nationwide.