Smallpox monkeys, symptoms. What happens to man
The World Health Organization predicts an increase in cases of monkeypox with the extension of monitoring to other countries. “The situation is evolving in such a way that WHO believes there will be more cases of monkeypox to be identified as surveillance will be extended to countries that are not endemic,” the organization said in an epidemiological note. . Current information indicates that those who have close physical contact with symptomatic infected are most at risk of contagion.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has already convened a group of experts for an “emergency meeting”, while at least two countries have already ordered stocks of the vaccineready and approved in 2019. But let’s proceed in order: what is monkeypox?
Widespread mainly in West Africa, especially in the Congo Basin, the monkey virus was first observed in 1958. In nature, the virus actually affects rodents and can be transmitted to primates (and therefore also to humans) by animals infected through close contact (blood or bites). According to the Istituto Superiore di Sanità: “it is an infection caused by a virus of the same family as smallpox but which differs widely from smallpox itself due to its lower diffusivity and severity […] In man it occurs with fever, body aches, headache, swollen lymph nodes, tiredness and skin manifestations such as blisters, pustules, small scabs […] The disease resolves spontaneously in 1-2 weeks with adequate rest and without specific therapies; antivirals can be administered when necessary “. According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the methods of transmission are still not entirely certain: through contact with an infected animal or, from human to human, through “Large respiratory droplets“(Prolonged face-to-face contact) and exchange of body fluids. The fact that the first cases in Britain occurred in the gay and bisexual male community also prompted the ECDC to recommend attention “to the community of individuals who identify as MSM (men who have sex with men, ed) or who have intercourse occasional sex or having multiple sexual partners “. It specifies that it provoked the protest of LGTBQ + groups who remember the stigma of HIV, long mistakenly considered the “homosexual virus”.
According to experts it is not about a particularly insidious virus, a particular testified by the fact that even previous outbreaks found in the West were quickly exhausted. Furthermore, the modes of transmission are not viral as in the case of coronaviruses, requiring exchanges of body fluids or large drops of saliva. In addition, the smallpox vaccine, which in Italy was mandatory until those born in 1981, also protects against the variant in question by guaranteeing immunity to those born after that date, including the elderly who would be more at risk in case of infection.
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