The United Kingdom is facing a “significant” increase in monkeypox cases, doctors warned, as experts say infections could increase over the next “two to three weeks” and the government’s response is “critical” to curbing its spread.
Dr Claire Dusnap, president of the British Sexual Health Association and HIV, also said the epidemic could have a “massive impact” on access to sexual health services in the UK.
This comes after Sajid Javid revealed yesterday that 11 more Britons tested positive for the virus, with a total of 20.
The cases involve a British child who is currently in critical condition in a London hospital, while another 100 infections have been registered in Europe.
Dr Dusnap told Sky News: “Our response is really critical here.
Dr Claire Dusnap, president of the British Sexual Health and HIV Association, warns of a “significant” increase in infections in the UK in the coming weeks
“There will be more diagnoses next week.
– It is difficult to say how much. What worries me the most is that there are infections all over Europe, so this has already spread.
“It is already circulating among the general population.
“Putting all these people on top is a big deal.
“It could be really significant numbers in the next two or three weeks.”
She says she expects more cases to be identified in the UK with a “significant increase next week”.
One of the first known cases of the monkeypox virus was shown to a patient on June 5, 2003, through a photo published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Electron microscope image from 2003, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showing mature virions of oval-shaped monkeypox
WHAT IS THE MONKEY STAR?
Monkeypox, which is often caught when handling monkeys, is a rare viral disease that kills about 10 percent of the people it strikes, according to figures.
The virus responsible for the disease is found mainly in the tropics of West and Central Africa.
Smallpox was first discovered in 1958, with the first human case reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970. Human cases were first reported in the United States in 2003 and the United Kingdom in September 2018.
It is inhabited by wild animals, but humans can catch it through direct contact with animals, such as handling monkeys or eating inadequately cooked meat.
The virus can enter the body through injured skin, the respiratory tract or the eyes, nose or mouth.
It can pass between people through droplets in the air and by touching the skin of an infected individual or touching contaminated objects.
Symptoms usually appear within five and 21 days after infection. These include fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, chills and fatigue.
The most obvious symptom is a rash that usually appears on the face before spreading to other parts of the body. This then forms skin lesions that accumulate and fall off.
Monkeypox is usually mild, with most patients recovering within a few weeks without treatment. However, the disease can often be fatal.
According to the World Health Organization, there are no specific treatments or vaccines for monkeypox infection.
The rare viral infection that people typically catch in the tropics of West and Central Africa can be transmitted through very close contact with an infected person.
It is usually mild, with most patients recovering within a few weeks without treatment.
However, the disease could be fatal, as the strain causing the current epidemic kills one in every 100 infected.
The disease, which was first discovered in monkeys, can be transmitted from person to person through close physical contact – as well as sexual intercourse – and is caused by the monkeypox virus.
Dr Dyusnap also said she was concerned about the impact of monkeypox on the treatment of other infections as staff deviated to deal with the outbreak.
She added: “Some clinics that have had cases have had to advise people not to come in.
“They did it first and foremost because if someone has monkeypox-like symptoms, we don’t want people sitting in waiting rooms, potentially infecting other people.
“They have introduced telephone sorting in all these places.”
In the UK, authorities are offering a smallpox vaccine to healthcare professionals and others who may have been exposed.
The virus is more common in West and Central Africa, but cases have occurred in the United Kingdom and nine other countries, including Spain, Portugal and Canada, which also reported outbreaks.
To date, no one has died from the viral disease.
Professor David Heyman, an expert in the epidemiology of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “What seems to be happening now is that it has entered the population as a sexual form, as a genital form and is spreading as and sexually transmitted infections, which amplifies its transmission worldwide.
He said that close contact is the main route of transmission, as the lesions typical of the disease are very infectious.
For example, parents caring for sick children are at risk, as are health workers, which has led some countries to vaccinate teams treating monkeypox patients using smallpox-related vaccines.
Many of the current cases have been identified in sexual health clinics.
The early genomic sequencing of a handful of cases in Europe suggests a similarity to a strain that spread to a limited extent in the UK, Israel and Singapore in 2018.
Hayman said it was “biologically plausible” for the virus to circulate outside the countries where it is endemic, but did not cause major outbreaks as a result of COVID-19 blockade, social distancing and travel restrictions.
That’s when it emerged that some of the country’s leading disease experts were warning that monkeypox would fill the void left by smallpox three years ago.
Researchers from leading institutions, including the University of Cambridge and the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine, say the viral disease will develop to fill a “niche” left after the eradication of smallpox.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, the experts attended a seminar in London in 2019 and discussed the need to develop “vaccines and treatments of a new generation.”
The seminar heard that since smallpox was eradicated in 1980, vaccination against smallpox has been discontinued and as a result, up to 70 percent of the world’s population is no longer protected against smallpox.
This means that they are also no longer protected against other viruses of the same family, such as smallpox.
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