Monkeypox: An unfamiliar virus spreading fast

 MONKEYPOX VIRUS

MONKEYPOX VIRUS

Another virus Monkeypox is spreading around the world. World Health Organization says there are 200 confirmed cases thus far in 11 different countries, so that number is expected to go up. Health officials are investigating a second possible case in the United States as well. The good news is we've known about Monkeypox for a long time.

We have a vaccine called Smallpox vaccine that appears to work well to control this. People aren't usually contagious from Monkeypox until their illness has declared itself like COVID is spread when you're asymptomatic and you have no symptoms that's what makes it so insidious. Monkeypox you're sick by the time you can spread it so it makes it easier to control.

Monkey Pox 

Scientists are hopeful that they are not seeing any big outbreaks of this. Monkeypox is said to be caused by a virus that is related to smallpox and is usually less severe. It's usually found in animals in the African rainforest and it does spread through close contact with people, animals, and material that's infected with it.

What is Monkeypox?

Monkeypox belongs to a family of viruses known as orthopoxviruses, similar to smallpox. It is much less severe in terms of human disease. It is transmitted by close physical contact or through droplets or potentially respiratory contact, usually into making contact. It produces less severe diseases than smallpox. It begins with fever, backache, and headache and then one of the distinguishing features is lots of swollen lymph nodes, particularly around the neck and also elsewhere in the body. And then a day or two later, it is associated with a characteristic rash, of first a vesicular rash, similar to chickenpox and then it becomes postural -- pustules.

MonkeyPox 

It sounds a little bit like Covid with close contacts and droplets. No, it is much more difficult to transmit than Covid. Covid is an aerosolized virus. You can have some degree of error solicitation with monkeypox but it is primarily with into mint face-to-face contact.

Monkey Pox Virus

Those numbers will grow but it is unlikely we will be talking about anything close to what we have seen with covid-19. And there is a lot of good news to think about. One is it's not nearly as transmissible, you have a longer incubation period that gives you time to investigate the contacts. You can trace the contexts because if you have the infection you have a characteristic vesicular rash. And, because the vaccines and drugs used to treat or prevent smallpox also treat monkeypox. So if the numbers start to increase and we have to vaccinate populations we can move on that pretty quickly. For all those reasons we are not looking at anything near the magnitude of the concern of something like covid-19.