Photo: Rashes on the hands of a person with the disease in Congo/CDCOn at least three continents
A first case was confirmed in Britain (Great Britain is an island off the northwest coast of…) on May 7, with a traveler returning from Nigeria. Two others on May 14, then a dozen suspected cases a few days (The day or the day is the interval which separates the sunrise from the sunset; it is the…) later. A dozen suspected cases were announced to Montreal (Montreal is both an administrative region and metropolis of Quebec[2]. This big…) May 19. One in Massachusetts the day before. The fact that so many cases are detected in such a short time weather (Time is a concept developed by human beings to apprehend the…) and in as many different places -including Spain and Portugal- suggests that several cases must have pass (The genus Passer was created by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques…) under the radar (Radar is a system that uses radio waves to detect and determine the…).
Is it the return of smallpox?
No. It is rather a virus (A virus is a biological entity that requires a host cell, which it uses…) from the same family as smallpox (the family called poxvirus, from the English pox, meaning pustules). Smallpox made theobject (In general, the word object (from the Latin objectum, 1361) designates an entity defined in…) of one campaign (The countryside, also called rural environment, designates all the cultivated areas…) massive (The word massive can be used as:) of vaccination (Vaccination is a process of introducing an external agent (the…) in the 1950s to 1970s, which led to its eradication.
Is it a new disease?
No. Smallpox monkey (A monkey (from the Latin simius, plural Simia) is an animal belonging to the group constituted by…) has been identified since the 1950s and the first confirmed case in a human was in 1970. Also, because the symptoms resemble those of smallpox, it is possible that cases have been observed for centuries, but have always been confused with those of smallpox.
The disease does not have the right name: although having been discovered in monkeys, it actually circulates mainly in small mammals, such as rats.
Is it more often seen in humans?
Possibly. Outbreaks in humans occur at regular intervals in country (Country comes from the Latin pagus which designated a territorial and tribal subdivision of extent…) ofAfrica (With an area of 30,221,532 km2 including the islands,…) Central and East Africawest (West is a cardinal point, opposite to east. That’s the direction to…). In 2003, the United States experienced an outbreak of 47 confirmed cases in six states (including Wisconsin and Indiana). This was the first reported outbreak outside of continent (The word continent comes from the Latin continere for « to hold together », or continens…) African. It had its origin in the importation of small mammals from Ghana.
But since then, cases observed here and there, notably in Great Britain in 2018, suggest that, in recent years, isolated cases may have been more numerous. Two Belgian researchers spoke of it in 2018 as a emerging disease (The OIE defines (in 2006) emerging diseases as new infections,…) to monitor. One possibility, raised as early as 2010, is that the herd immunity achieved against smallpox through vaccination may have indirectly harmed the progression of monkeypox, but that this benefit could be train (A train is a guided vehicle running on rails. A train is composed of…) to fade, since no one has been vaccinated for 40 years.
What is certain is that this time around, as most of the cases seen in Britain and elsewhere have not traveled recently, we must now speak of « community transmission », which means that case tracking and contact tracing will be very important.
How is the virus transmitted?
For’moment (The instant designates the smallest constituent element of time. The instant is not…), that’s part of the mystery. In previous outbreaks, we always talked about transmission by droplets and, above all, by direct contact with a animal (An animal (from the Latin animus, spirit, or vital principle) is, according to the classical classification, a…) contaminated. In the present case, because four of the first UK cases were from the LGBTQ community, it has led experts to wonder about the possibility transmission through sexual contact. This would be a first, but it should be noted that it is too early to validate this hypothesis, as long as we do not have the results of the samples from the contaminated people. You should also know that the virus has a period ofincubation (Incubation is the period during which the eggs are brooded, so as to maintain them…) one to two weeks – in other words, it can take one to two weeks between the time you were infected and the time when the symptoms appear.
Should we be worried?
Asked in the Daily Telegraph of London (London (in English: London – /?l?nd?n/) is the capital as well as the largest city…)the teacher of medicine (Medicine (from the Latin medicus, « that heals ») is the science and the…) of the’University (A university is an institution of higher education whose objective is the…) East Anglia, Paul Hunter, believes the risk of infecting someone in the same home (A house is a medium-sized building intended for the dwelling of a family,…) would be 10%. Cases of hospitalizations are rare. The outbreak in the United States in 2003 resulted in no deaths. Children are, however, at higher risk of severe cases than adults, according to the WHO.
What are the symptoms ?
First of the fever (Fever is the elevation of body temperature in a being with…), headaches and muscle aches. But the virus mainly produces a rash that is characteristic of it, starting first on the face and spreading to the rest of the body, including the genitals. These signs are compared to those of the varicella (Chickenpox is a common rash childhood disease, characterized by its…) and it can be itchy. L’Organization (An organization is) world of health (Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and is not…) describes symptoms as ranging from « mild to severe ».
Is there a treatment?
Although the smallpox vaccine also protected against monkeypox, the vaccination campaign stopped about 40 years ago.
A medication (A drug is a substance or composition presented as possessing…)Tecovirimat, is approved in Europe (Europe is a land region that can be considered a…), but has only been tested on animals. There is also at least one vaccine that could prevent contamination, which was approved in the United States in 2019.
For further:
– US monkeypox case reported, as Spain, Portugal report infections in growing outbreak, STAT News (NeWS is a windowing system designed by James Gosling (who contributed…)May 18.
– Rare monkeypox outbreak in UK, Europe and US: What is it and should we worry?, NPR, May 18.
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#Monkey #pox
