Monkeypox 2022 - All you need to know about the Outbreak

Updated on August 05, 2022 16:29 PM by Anna P

What is Monkeypox

In anyways WHO is trying its best not to create another massacre like COVID-19; now, for information, Monkeypox is caused by a specific Monkeypox virus; now this virus is a component of the Orthopoxvirus genus in the brood of Poxviridae.

So, it can be said by the medical research groups that it is a cousin of the smallpox virus since both belong to the same family line of viruses.

Where did Monkeypox start

Monkeypox is a zoonotic viral disease that first occurred in the tropical rainforest areas of central and West Africa and was occasionally exported to other regions until the affected people started to travel to other parts of the world.

Now, the virus traveled with those people to another part of the world, creating an outbreak over time. However, medical experts have been informing about the spread of this new virus from the first day onwards, keeping the fact that people must be aware of what is coming.

What is the Cause of Monkeypox

The word Monkeypox itself says that it was first seen in monkeys; now, usually, COVID-19 has also been spread out through bats. Now, it is a disputable factor as nobody keeps monkeys at home, let alone tries to consume them.

How that virus got into that one initial monkey is difficult to say. Moreover, it was infectious to humans and was not previously known by the various animal workers worldwide. So, WHO experts can estimate that the virus is transmitted to humans through close contact with an infected animal or monkey.

What is the reality of the Monkeypox virus?

Now, that’s a debatable issue; when smallpox took over the world, technology was not so advanced, and people were not so aware of the consequences of the disease. Now, time has changed, and the internet makes it easy to reach other parts of the world within seconds to get information about a deadly outbreak.

Moreover, people are much more careful this time, considering that a pandemic has recently caused havoc and chaos, causing millions of worldwide deaths.

What are the Symptoms of Monkeypox?

Monkeypox is typically another virus whose main job is to break the immune system, and its breakout is clinically presented with fever and rash. Here are a few symptoms issued by WHO

Fever with Rashes
Swollen lymph nodes.
Chills
Body Aches
Fatigue
Headache
Respiratory Symptoms like Sore throat, Cough, and Nasal Congestion

The monkeypox virus may cause some other range of medical complications which are still under-diagnosis.

The only ray of hope is that it has similarities with smallpox so that medical experts could take certain references from that deadly disease.

Can Monkeypox come without any symptoms?

Now it’s very difficult to recognize the overall strength of the contamination; half of the time, the person affected does not get any body-sores for the first couple of days.

Moreover, it is very difficult for the family members to recognize the early symptoms as not all are acquainted with the symptoms of the disease.

So, contamination is rather subtle than people being openly aware of it.

How does Monkeypox spread from one person to another

Research is still going on regarding the whole scenario and characteristics of the virus and its widespread effect as Monkeypox. Now, body fluids play an important role in transforming this disease from one person to another, just not monkeys involved.

So, the monkeypox virus is transmitted from one person to another if they come in close contact or skin-to-skin contact.

However, the transfer mediums of Monkeypox include

Lesions
Body fluids
Respiratory droplets,
And even contaminated materials such as bed sheets and pillows.

Is Monkeypox contagious?

But, the monkeypox virus is infectious enough to transfer from person to person or from an animal to a person. The issue does not end there; medical research experts have also seen that the affected individual or animal can contaminate the materials and products they might be using.

Thus, the materials contaminated with the virus can also transfer themselves to an uninfected person and cause the disease.

Spread-out of the Monkeypox

Recent developments in antiviral agents have not stopped spreading the virus around various regions; it has been spreading in urban areas. The animals hosting this specific monkeypox virus include a range of rodents and even non-human primates.

Even though the animal virus originated from the African monkeys, it is now comfortable in many other types of animals.

Monkeypox outbreak

Even though that was a huge success, this time, medical experts are pretty wary about this new relative of the smallpox virus.

However, Monkeypox is less contagious and deadly than smallpox and causes less severe illness. So, it may be easier to tackle this disease and expect the death toll to be less.

People are already too tired to cope with the recent pandemic, so the incoming monkeypox disease is causing frustration worldwide.

Even though people are fearless right now with the recurrent outbreaks around the world and putting public health at stake, the medical world needs to be careful about this new virus.

Treatment of Monkeypox with smallpox vaccine

The only good news is that the vaccines used to eradicate smallpox also successfully protect against Monkeypox. Now, that one a million news and a ray of hope for all the affected victims.

Creating a vaccine starting from scratch like COVID-19 would have taken enough time to make the outbreak much more severe.

Treatment of Monkeypox with new vaccines

It is a huge success that more and more people can be vaccinated against the virus. However, newer vaccines have been developed recently to beat the virus-creating Monkeypox in the first place.

One of the vaccines has been approved for the prevention of Monkeypox. So, that is also a piece of huge positive news for public health, keeping the fact that WHO can control the outbreak before it gets out of hand.

The fatality of Monkeypox

Even though Monkeypox is connected to smallpox, it is usually a self-finite disease, and the symptoms last from two to four weeks.

Now severe cases can occur, keeping the fact that it can be fatal many times, but somehow, its fatality is not as deadly as smallpox. In recent months, the case fatality ratio has been around three to six percent.

Monkeypox is like Smallpox

The viral nature of Monkeypox resembles that of smallpox; as discussed above, both viruses are related and descendants from the same family of Orthopoxvirus infection.

Previously we all knew smallpox created huge havoc around the world. Without research and trial and error, the World Health Organization declared that they had completely eradicated it worldwide in 1980.

Monkeypox vs. Smallpox

Thankfully, medical research experts developed an antiviral agent, which the medical world previously used to treat smallpox. Now, the antiviral agent has been licensed for the treatment of Monkeypox.

The results are pretty positive with this antiviral agent. Thanks to the nature of the virus, which has the same clinical presentation as smallpox.

Mutation in Monkeypox

According to research and development, the monkeypox virus is an enveloped double-stranded DNA virus. The virus belongs to the Orthopoxvirus genus of the Poxviridae family.

Now there are two distinctive genetic clades of the monkeypox virus: it is of two types in the simple explanation, one is from the central African, which is the Congo Basin clade, and the other one is from the West African clade.

So, Monkeypox consists of two types of genetic clades from two different types of primitives.

However, the Congo Basin clade has been historically causing more severe monkeypox disease symptoms and has been thought to be more contagious than the West African clade.

Even though the initial geographical division between the two clades was present, the spread-out was so severe that sooner than later, the two clades started blending in; especially it has been seen blending in Cameroon, so right then, Cameroon was the only country where both virus clades were found creating havoc around the population.

Monkeypox is also seen in animals

Over the months, various animal species other than monkeys and primates have been identified as capable of contracting the monkeypox virus.

The virus not only attacks primitives and humans but is susceptible to all forms of living creatures. They can completely attack almost any living or breathing creature and break their immune system with their spread of disease.

Is Monkeypox an epidemic

Right now, the Monkeypox outbreak has taken the status of being an epidemic; World Health Organization has been working on it to at least stop it from being a pandemic; enough public health issues are going on, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director of WHO does not want to have another pandemic at the edge.