2024-08-20 16:45:31
“Mpox is not the new Covid”stressed, Tuesday, August 20, the director of the European branch of the World Health Organization (WHO), Hans Kluge, when the UN organization ordered, a week earlier, a special health emergency (USPPI) for the disease, since beginning of the year, has caused 19,000 cases and 541 deaths on the African continent. Answers to the main questions about this cancer in many African countries.
How is it different from a monkey?
No, it is the same disease. WHO decided, on November 28, 2022to change the official name of a deceased person, “monkey monkey” in English. This decision, unusual in the middle of an epidemic, was taken with suspicion “Racist and abusive language” targeting patients, especially in the African population and in the homosexual community.
Virus kills the name of “monkeypox virus”. It comes from the places where it was first identified: in 1958, in Copenhagen, Denmark, in a colony of monkeys that were imported for research and showed mild related symptoms. The first human case was not found until much later, in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in a 9-month-old baby.
Since then, research has shown that the main animal reservoir, that is to say that the species between which the virus circulates in nature, would rather be among rodents, specifically tree squirrels, even if monkeys can also be contaminated.
The word “pox” refers to smallpox (small disease in English), which belongs to the same family of orthopoxviruses, viruses that cause skin infections. There is strong cross-immunity between different members of this subfamily, meaning that an infection caused by one provides good protection against others. This is also the reason why, to fight against mpox, health authorities recommend the use of vaccines originally developed against smallpox, such as Bavarian Nordic. The latter is produced from another orthopoxvirus relative: vaccinia, a virus that affects cattle (Cow in Latin) who made history by giving his name to the vaccine.
Why do we talk about “clades” and not “variations”, as for Covid-19?
Four viruses that cause mpox are currently circulating. To make their choice, experts talk about “clades” and not “variations”. These terms do not show the same degree of genetic proximity.
#mpox #epidemic