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Monkeypox: From Jungle to John

Monkeypox has raised the alarm since the World Health Organization confirmed about 80 cases of monkeypox with recent outbreaks reported in 11 countries: namely, the United States, Canada, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Although the virus does not spread easily among people and the risk to the wider public is said to be very low, Jimmy Whitworth, a professor of international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that the recent prevalence of monkeypox virus infection in humans was “unusual.”

Monkeypox resembles smallpox, but it is less contagious and causes milder illnesses. It usually begins with flu-like symptoms including fever, headache, muscle aches, chills, exhaustion and swollen lymph nodes. Within 1-3 days, patients develop a rash that begins on the face and spreads to other body parts.

Rashes turn into pus-filled blisters. The illness is usually mild, lasting for about two to four weeks. The disease is usually found in West and Central Africa, and rarely spreads elsewhere. All current cases are being investigated. Instances of the disease outside of the region are linked to travel to the endemic countries.

Monkeypox was first found in 1958. There are two main strains: the Congo Basin, which is more severe – with up to 10 per cent mortality, – and the West African strain, which has a fatality rate of more like 1 per cent of cases. The zoonotic transmission can occur from direct contact with blood or being bitten by squirrels and monkeys, but rats are nowadays considered the main carrier.

According to the disease investigation, the UK cases have been reported as the West African strain. In general, most of the patients were in the outback of Central and West Africa near the tropical rainforest areas where the close contact with host animals is always possible.

There have been only eight cases reported in the United Kingdom in the past before this year. The first recent UK case had reportedly travelled to Nigeria while the American patient got sick after a trip to Canada. The case in Australia is a man who developed mild symptoms before returning home from London.

Passengers of the same flight are being asked to isolate themselves if suspicious symptoms showed. Professor Brett Sutton, Victoria’s Chief Health Officer said that there were early indications that the cases across Europe and North America were a version of the disease from West Africa that is milder than the other forms. Even so, he emphasized that the fatality rate was between 1 and 5 per cent.

Although monkeypox is caused by a kind of virus, it doesn’t have the same spread mechanism as COVID-19 or the flu, where transmission is more fleeting. Human-to-human transmission can result from a close contact with respiratory secretions, skin lesions of an infected person or recently contaminated objects.

Transmission via droplet respiratory particles usually requires prolonged face-to-face contact, which puts health workers, household members and other close contacts of active cases at greater risk. However, the longest documented chain of transmission in a community has risen in recent years.

This may reflect declining immunity in all communities due to the cessation of smallpox vaccination. Transmission can also occur via the placenta from mother to fetus, which can lead to congenital monkeypox, or during a close contact during and after birth. It is unclear at this time if monkeypox can be transmitted specifically through sexual transmission routes, but a close physical contact is a well-known risk factor for transmission.There is currently no specific vaccine against monkeypox; however, smallpox vaccination has demonstrated to be about 85% effective in preventing monkeypox. Therefore, smallpox-vaccinated people are likely to develop immunity to monkeypox. Those who were born after 1980 and have never been vaccinated against smallpox could be more at risk of monkeypox contraction than the other age groups.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au, http://www.who.int, http://www.bbc.com