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EDITORIAL| VOLUME 122, P569-571, SEPTEMBER 01, 2022
Published: July 01, 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2022.06.047
E Petersen, A Zumla, DS Hui, DR Lucey, G Ippolito, MPG Koopmans, Show all authors
Since January 2022, and as of 15th June 2022, a total of 2103 laboratory-confirmed cases of monkeypox, including one death, have been reported to the WHO from 42 countries in five of six WHO regions (WHO 2022a; European Centers for Disease Control 2022). The majority (84%) of confirmed cases (n=1773) are in the WHO European Region, and only a few have a travel history to endemic countries in Africa.
The unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox primarily affect men who have sex with men (MSM) with new or multiple partners. A new nomenclature has been proposed to distinguish recurring local cases in known enzootic regions from the current outbreak, with the previous Congo Basin lineage as clade 1, the West African local cases (and incidental travellers) as clade 2, and the current outbreak outside of the African region as clade 3 (Happi et al., 2022).
A recent estimate of the R0 of the ongoing outbreak of MPXV clade 3 suggests it may be substantially higher than 1, thus sustaining an expanding outbreak in this high-risk population of young men who are too young to have had a smallpox vaccine in their childhood (Endo et al., 2022). The priority should be on stopping further spread and protecting frontline health-care workers (Ntoumi et al., 2022).
The immunity against pox viruses is limited to people over 40 years of age since smallpox was eradicated around 1980 and the vaccination programs ended. Thus, any immunity from prior smallpox vaccination would only be present in persons over the age of 40 years. Thus, the successful smallpox eradication and cessation of vaccination has created an ecological niche where the MPXV can easier spread outside its natural rodent reservoir, from human to human (Petersen et al., 2019 Jan). The MPXV has not radically changed and remains a zoonosis – but is now spreading effectively in a highly sexually active network of young men without immunity. If surveillance was strengthened and response timely the outbreak could be stopped at the source
11Zumla et al., 2022,. ...
https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S...elatedArticles
Published: July 01, 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2022.06.047
E Petersen, A Zumla, DS Hui, DR Lucey, G Ippolito, MPG Koopmans, Show all authors
Since January 2022, and as of 15th June 2022, a total of 2103 laboratory-confirmed cases of monkeypox, including one death, have been reported to the WHO from 42 countries in five of six WHO regions (WHO 2022a; European Centers for Disease Control 2022). The majority (84%) of confirmed cases (n=1773) are in the WHO European Region, and only a few have a travel history to endemic countries in Africa.
The unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox primarily affect men who have sex with men (MSM) with new or multiple partners. A new nomenclature has been proposed to distinguish recurring local cases in known enzootic regions from the current outbreak, with the previous Congo Basin lineage as clade 1, the West African local cases (and incidental travellers) as clade 2, and the current outbreak outside of the African region as clade 3 (Happi et al., 2022).
A recent estimate of the R0 of the ongoing outbreak of MPXV clade 3 suggests it may be substantially higher than 1, thus sustaining an expanding outbreak in this high-risk population of young men who are too young to have had a smallpox vaccine in their childhood (Endo et al., 2022). The priority should be on stopping further spread and protecting frontline health-care workers (Ntoumi et al., 2022).
The immunity against pox viruses is limited to people over 40 years of age since smallpox was eradicated around 1980 and the vaccination programs ended. Thus, any immunity from prior smallpox vaccination would only be present in persons over the age of 40 years. Thus, the successful smallpox eradication and cessation of vaccination has created an ecological niche where the MPXV can easier spread outside its natural rodent reservoir, from human to human (Petersen et al., 2019 Jan). The MPXV has not radically changed and remains a zoonosis – but is now spreading effectively in a highly sexually active network of young men without immunity. If surveillance was strengthened and response timely the outbreak could be stopped at the source
11Zumla et al., 2022,. ...
https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S...elatedArticles
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