Two more cases of monkeypox – a rare viral infection associated with smallpox – have been confirmed in England, health officials in the UK confirmed on Saturday.
This comes after the first case was discovered in a man who recently flew to the United Kingdom from Nigeria on May 7.
The patient received specialized care in the isolation ward at Guy and St. Thomas Infectious Diseases Hospital in London, according to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
UKHSA did not release any details about the person’s gender or age, but said it was working to identify anyone who had been in close contact with the infected patient, including people traveling on the same flight.
The latter cases are from the same household, but are not related to the earlier case. One of the two patients was treated at St Mary’s Hospital in London, while the other was in isolation, UKHSA reported.
Public health in Scotland has already begun tracking the contacts of one of the patients north of the border, where “a small number” of people are now under quarantine, a standard procedure, the agency said.
What are the symptoms of monkeypox?
Monkeypox is a relative of smallpox, a disease that was eradicated in 1980 but is less transmitted, causes milder symptoms, and is less deadly.
The disease usually lasts two to four weeks and symptoms can appear anywhere from five to 21 days after infection.
Symptoms of monkeypox usually begin with a combination of fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, chills, exhaustion and swollen lymph nodes.
This last symptom is usually what helps doctors distinguish monkeypox from chickenpox or smallpox, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Once you have a fever, the main feature of monkeypox, a nasty rash, tends to develop one to three days later, often starting from the face and then spreading to other parts of the body.
The number of lesions can vary from a few to thousands.
The lesions will go through an ugly maturation process, from macules (flat lesions) to papules (raised lesions), vesicles (fluid-filled lesions), then pustules (lesions filled with pus) and then finally scabs (crusty lesions). , before possibly falling off.
Why is it called monkeypox?
The monkeypox virus belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus of the family Poxviridae. It was first discovered in 1958, when two outbreaks of measles-like disease appeared in laboratory monkeys kept for testing, hence the name.
But monkeys may not be to blame for outbreaks, and the natural reservoir of monkeypox remains unknown, although the WHO says rodents are the most likely.
“Evidence of monkeypox virus infection has been found in many animals in Africa, including rope squirrels, tree squirrels, Gambian poaching rats, dormant monkeys, and various species of monkeys,” the health agency said.
Where does monkeypox occur?
Human monkeypox mainly causes outbreaks in the rainforests of Central and West Africa and is not usually observed in Europe.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had the first human case of smallpox in 1970.
Since then, cases have been reported in 11 African countries: Benin, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.
The first outbreak of monkeypox reported outside Africa involved imports of infected mammals in the United States in 2003, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Most recently, in 2018 and 2019, two passengers from the United Kingdom, one from Israel and one from Singapore, all with a history of travel to Nigeria, were diagnosed with monkeypox after a major outbreak there, according to the European Health Agency, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC),
How do you catch monkeypox?
You can catch the virus by biting or scratching an infected animal by eating bush meat, being in direct contact with an infected person, or touching contaminated bedding or clothing.
The virus enters the body through skin lesions, airways or mucous membranes (eyes, nose or mouth).
Human-to-human transmission is thought to occur mainly through large respiratory droplets, which usually cannot travel more than a few feet, so prolonged face-to-face contact will be required.
Should I be worried?
Monkeypox “is usually a mild self-limiting disease and most people recover within a few weeks,” the UKHSA said in a statement confirming the case.
“It is important to emphasize that smallpox is not easily spread among humans and the overall risk to the general public is very low,” said Dr. Colin Brown, director of the Agency for Clinical and Emerging Infections.
Although its symptoms are milder than those of smallpox, monkeypox has been shown to cause death in as many as 11% of infected patients, compared with about 30% for smallpox, according to the WHO.
Mortality is higher among children and young adults, and immunocompromised individuals are particularly at risk of severe disease.
Treatment and prevention
There is currently no recommended specific treatment for monkeypox and it usually goes away on its own.
Smallpox vaccination is thought to be very effective in preventing monkeypox, but since smallpox was declared eradicated more than 40 years ago, first-generation smallpox vaccines are no longer available to the general public.
A newer vaccine, developed by Bavarian Nordic for the prevention of smallpox and monkeypox, has been approved in the European Union, the United States and Canada (under the trade names Imvanex, Jynneos and Imvamune), and antivirals are also under development.
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