While the Middlesex London Health Unit (MLHU) reported on Monday the first detected case of monkeypox in the region, a local infectious disease expert and consultant aims to calm residents’ nerves, saying the disease “is much less contagious than COVID-19. ”
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MLHU staff members have determined that the person diagnosed with smallpox has not had close contacts that require post-exposure action to prevent infection or further public health monitoring.
“While we are reporting this new local case of smallpox, the risk to the community remains very low,” said Dr. Alex Summer, MLHU’s medical director of health.
Summers was unable to “go into more detail” on the region-specific case, but MLHU believes it is associated with travel and not transmission.
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Smallpox is a viral and endemic disease that is usually transmitted from animals to humans.
“It can be transmitted to people through direct contact with body fluids or injuries of infected people or animals, as well as from contaminated clothing or bedding and through respiratory drops after prolonged exposure to an infected person.” , is described in the MLHU press release.
The symptoms of smallpox are similar, but less severe than smallpox, which can include fever, headache, swollen lymph nodes, and lethargy, followed by the development of a rash called smallpox lesions. The rash may appear on the face and appear a few days after the onset of symptoms with the possibility of spreading to other parts of the body.
According to Dr. Sameer Elsayed, an infectious disease physician and professor at Western University, smallpox is associated with a group of closely related viruses that include smallpox, smallpox, and smallpox.
“The monkeypox virus was first discovered in 1958 as a cause of a non-fatal smallpox-like skin disease of monkeys in captivity at a research center in Denmark. using these monkeys to make polio vaccines, “Elsayed said.
“However, a recent research study showed that monkey pox existed even before the 20th century.”
Collected skin samples were found from about 1,000 preserved rodents that lived before the 1900s with DNA traces of the monkeypox virus. This study was conducted in museums, one in New York City and the other in Central Africa.
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As a result of these findings, Elsayed said the monkey’s smallpox name is an inappropriate name, an incorrect or inaccurate use of a name or term, as “African terrestrial rodents (rats and squirrels) serve as natural reservoir of the virus while monkeys and other primates are believed to have been accidentally infected. “
The first case of human smallpox was in a nine-month-old baby in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1970s, after smallpox vaccination programs began to disappear and smallpox cases began to emerge in the United States. ‘Africa.
Read more: Canada Leads WHO’s Fight Against Monkeypox
Although there is no specific treatment for smallpox infection, antivirals and previous smallpox vaccination have helped provide cross-protection, according to the MLHU.
There are two strains of the monkeypox virus, Elsayed said, that have been described in Africa: the West African strain and the Central African strain. The mortality rate of the West African strain is about 3.6%, while the mortality rate of the Central African strain is about 10.6%.
“However, these rates were based on research conducted in Africa between the 1970s and 1990s and may not be commensurate with what would be expected of accidental infections observed among people living in developed countries,” he said. Elsayed.
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The Democratic Republic of the Congo has had the “largest share of cases,” according to Elsayed, specifically in children through constant contact and handling of disease-carrying animals.
But human smallpox infection is not new in Europe and North America.
In 2003, an outbreak of more than 80 children and young adults broke out in several Midwestern U.S. states after acquiring exotic prairie dogs that became ill after contact with African rodents during transportation. the import.
However, there were no deaths, Elsayed said, adding that three children were found to have experienced brain inflammation or encephalitis, but that they eventually recovered.
“Between 2018 and 2021, there were several cases of monkeypox infection associated with travel between visitors from Nigeria who returned to the UK, Israel, Singapore and the United States, with no deaths reported. “Elsayed said.
All recent infections, including those identified in the London region, have been due to the West African strain or clade, which seems to cause milder symptoms compared to the Central African clade.
Elsayed, however, said that clinically, it can be difficult to distinguish the two smallpox strains from the monkey.
“After the virus spreads from the inoculation or inlet area, it travels all over the body and eventually goes to the skin and can go elsewhere,” Elsayed said. “So it can go to the eye, it can go to the liver, it will rarely go to the brain as a cause of inflammation, but usually the target site will be the skin, the same for both strains.”
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Elsayed added that he was not surprised to learn of the first reported case of monkeypox in the London area.
Elsayed said people are more mobile now, and not just internationally, but also provincially.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, people weren’t really mobile during that time. Now people feel a little freer and maybe there’s more contact and interpersonal meetings after a two-year hiatus. I guess, from crowded activities and events, things can be passed on quite easily from one person to another when it comes to an infection. “
But Elsayed said the monkey’s smallpox is not as contagious as COVID-19.
“The West African variant of the monkeypox is 100 times less contagious than the Omicron variant of COVID-19,” Elsayed said.
Unlike COVID-19, he said there is no evidence that the monkeypox virus is transmitted through the airway.
Bites from infected animals and eating meat from infected animals are common ways of acquiring the infection in Africa, although “physical contact is still the most common mode of transmission,” according to Elsayed.
“You need 10 people with monkeypox to transmit the virus to one person basically,” Elsayed said, “compared to Omicron, where you have one person infecting 10 people.”
Elsayed believes many people are afraid of the seemingly constant panic and stress caused by two years of anxiety over the COVID-19 pandemic. “But monkeypox is a different virus.”
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“It has a different medium and many people over the age of 50 have been vaccinated against smallpox,” Elsaed said.
“As long as these people have an intact immune system, no other major health issues, they will have some degree of protection against monkeypox, with 85% cross-protection in general with smallpox vaccines.”
According to his research, monkeypox has been infecting humans for more than 50 years with more than 1,000 cases reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo annually.
There have been no reported deaths outside Africa.
Infection control recommendations, however, align similarly to those related to COVID-19, Elsayed said.
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“People infected with monkeypox should wear surgical masks and skin lesions should be covered until they have healed,” Elsayed said. “Personal items such as towels and sheets should not be shared.”
Frequently touched surfaces should also be regularly disinfected and social distancing should be practiced with household members and non-household members until the disease is resolved.
“In humans without previous smallpox vaccination, the chance of a close family contact becoming infected is between seven and 12 percent, compared to three percent or less for non-domestic contacts,” Elsayed said. .
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He doubts that “there will be no reason to have any confinement near COVID-19. We are now catching this virus more and more because we are looking for it. So I can’t see it. [lockdown] happening and if it happens, I would question it.
“Personally, I don’t care more about monkeypox than other things that affect public health, such as mental health, education, alcoholism, and smoking,” Elsayed said. “These are more important, in my opinion, when it comes to public health issues.”
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