State health officials say they've identified 12 cases of monkeypox so far in Connecticut, and the number could be steadily growing.

Health officials say the virus likely spread into Connecticut from New York, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than 400 cases have been identified so far.

They say the LGBTQ+ community is disproportionately affected.

Dr. Scott Roberts is an infectious disease doctor with Yale Medicine. He says most of the cases in the state so far have been mild.

"It's really been pain management and focusing on having these patients isolate and avoid sexual contact or really close, prolonged contact with anybody," said Roberts.

Doctors say the infection usually spreads through skin-to-skin contact.

Officials say testing capacity is getting stronger, with four corporate labs stepping up to help this week.

Testing has increased from 10,000 tests per week as a capability to 50,000 tests per week as a capability, with one more lab expected to come online as well.

Taking a lesson from COVID-19 response, officials say more testing means more containment. The more you can identify the cases, the more you can contract trace and hopefully limit the spread of this infection further.

The federal government is buying another 2.5 million doses of the monkeypox vaccine. Limited vaccine supplies are reserved for close contacts.

Officials say they can prevent infection even after you've been exposed.

Their first goal is to get people within the first four days of exposure and try to get them a vaccine to prevent infection altogether.

They can actually give the vaccine up to 14 days after exposure to prevent monkeypox.