• FluTrackers.com Inc. does not provide medical advice. Information on this web site is collected from various internet resources, and the FluTrackers board of directors makes no warranty to the safety, efficacy, correctness or completeness of the information posted on this site by any author or poster. The information collated here is for instructional and/or discussion purposes only and is NOT intended to diagnose or treat any disease, illness, or other medical condition. Every individual reader or poster should seek advice from their personal physician/healthcare practitioner before considering or using any interventions that are discussed on this website. By continuing to access this website you agree to consult your personal physican before using any interventions posted on this website, and you agree to hold harmless FluTrackers.com Inc., the board of directors, the members, and all authors and posters for any effects from use of any medication, supplement, vitamin or other substance, device, intervention, etc. mentioned in posts on this website, or other internet venues referenced in posts on this website.
  • We are not asking for any donations. Do not donate to any entity who says they are raising funds for us.

Discussion - Thoughts on a global outbreak of monkeypox

African scientists baffled by monkeypox cases in Europe, US

...

By MARIA CHENG AP Medical Writer
May 20, 2022, 8:02 AM

LONDON -- Scientists who have monitored numerous outbreaks of monkeypox in Africa say they are baffled by the disease's recent spread in Europe and North America.
...
“I’m stunned by this. Every day I wake up and there are more countries infected,” said Oyewale Tomori, a virologist who formerly headed the Nigerian Academy of Science and who sits on several World Health Organization advisory boards.

“This is not the kind of spread we’ve seen in West Africa, so there may be something new happening in the West,” he said.
...
One of the theories British health officials are exploring is whether the disease is being sexually transmitted. Health officials have asked doctors and nurses to be on alert for potential cases, but said the risk to the general population is low.
...
Experts have stressed they do not know if the disease is being spread through sex or other close contact related to sex.

Nigeria hasn't seen sexual transmission, Tomori said, but he noted that viruses that hadn’t initially been known to transmit via sex, like Ebola, were later proven to do so after bigger epidemics showed different patterns of spread.

The same could be true of monkeypox, Tomori said.
...
Scientists said that while it's possible the outbreak's first patient caught the disease while in Africa, what's happening now is exceptional.

“We've never seen anything like what's happening in Europe,” said Christian Happi, director of the African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases. “We haven't seen anything to say that the transmission patterns of monkeypox have been changing in Africa. So if something different is happening in Europe, then Europe needs to investigate that.”
...
Shabir Mahdi, a professor of vaccinology at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said a detailed investigation of the outbreak in Europe, including determining who the first patients were, was now critical.

“We need to really understand how this first started and why the virus is now gaining traction,” he said. “In Africa, there have been very controlled and infrequent outbreaks of monkeypox. If that's now changing, we really need to understand why.”
...
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/monkeypox-spreads-west-baffling-african-scientists-84854464
 
Spain is reporting that most of its cases result from a single mass exposure in a sauna. The timing of this outbreak is far more consistent with a small number of superspreader events than many generations of silent H2H spread.
 
Belgium -
https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum...keypox-aa/949192-belgium-2022-monkeypox-cases
Post 3:

"The government decided to consult the RAG, the scientific experts of the Risk Assessment Group.
...
The context is particular, because this virus, endemic in West Africa, but unusual in Europe, seems to have spread here mainly during sexual contact between men and men, and multiple sexual contacts. Monkeypox is transmitted by direct contact during sexual intercourse, regardless of sexual orientation. Transmission also occurs through very close physical contact with an infected person (through bodily fluids, among others) or contact with clothing or linen used by an infected person. Nevertheless, the risk for the general population is low.

The RAG therefore decided that it was necessary to launch an awareness campaign aimed at men who have sex with other men, and people with several sexual partners.

High-risk contacts should self-monitor for any symptoms: fever, body aches, fatigue, rash. A delicate prevention message, because it is as essential as it must be non-stigmatising. On the eve of Pride, which promotes international contacts and male homosexual encounters, the authorities believe it is their duty to pass this recommendation."
 

Dr. Theresa Tam

@CPHO_Canada
1/4 Emerging confirmed and suspect cases of rare human infection with #Monkeypox (MPX) virus have been reported, including in the UK, Portugal, Spain, US and Canada. MPX virus does not spread efficiently.
5:11 PM · May 19, 2022·Twitter Web App
63
Retweets


Reply
Dr. Theresa Tam

@CPHO_Canada
·
20h
Replying to
@CPHO_Canada
2/4 One suspected MPX case that was reported in the US has potential links to suspected case(s) in Canada. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is working with partners on the international and provincial investigations.
2
8
45
Dr. Theresa Tam

@CPHO_Canada
·
20h
3/4 Although person-to-person spread of MPX is not common, the virus can be spread by close contact via the respiratory tract and/or through direct exposure to an infected animal/human’s blood, body fluids or lesions, or virus-contaminated objects.
16
18
50
Dr. Theresa Tam

@CPHO_Canada
·
20h
4/4 As laboratory and epidemiological investigations continue in Canada and new information emerges, #PHAC will continue to keep Canadians informed.
 
Thank you to everyone on the site for this effort. I know it is a lot after dealing with COVID-19 for....seems forever...... :surrender: It continues to be a privledge to work with you.

To our readers, thank you for following.

We remain the same....no corporate $, no government $, no ads, no selling stuff.

We are Independent Media.
 
20 May 2022

Monkeypox goes global: why scientists are on alert

...
Max Kozlov
...
“It’s eye-opening to see this kind of spread,” says Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California Los Angeles, who has studied monkeypox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for more than a decade.
...
The number of cases detected outside of Africa in the past week alone — which is all but certain to increase — has already surpassed the number detected outside the continent since 1970, when the virus was first identified as causing disease in humans. This rapid spread is what has scientists on high alert.
...
‘Deeply concerning’

Still, for monkeypox to be detected in people with no apparent connection to one another suggests that the virus might have been spreading silently — a fact that Andrea McCollum, an epidemiologist who heads the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention poxvirus team calls “deeply concerning”.

Unlike SARS-CoV-2, which can spread asymptomatically, monkeypox does not usually go unnoticed when it infects a person, in part because of the skin lesions it causes. If monkeypox could spread asymptomatically, it would be especially troubling because it would make the virus harder to track, McCollum says.

Another puzzle is why almost all of the case clusters include men aged 20–50, many of whom are gay, bisexual and have sex with men (GBMSM). Although monkeypox isn’t known to be sexually transmitted, sexual activity certainly constitutes close contact, Rimoin says. The most likely explanation for this unexpected pattern of transmission, MacIntyre says, is that the virus was coincidentally introduced into a GBMSM community, and the virus has continued circulating there.
...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01421-8
 
Something the media is missing in assuming there are large numbers of missed milder cases worldwide...of the 146 or so cases reported so far, there are NO cases that are both confirmed monkeypox and confirmed female. There are several cases whose gender is not specified, and there is one suspect female case in Spain, but no confirmed female cases.

If you assumed that these cases simply represent the most severe or most unusual cases in a much larger outbreak, you'd suspect equal ratios of males and females. That's totally not what's going on.

The other thing the media is missing is that unless there has been global distribution of infected animals or products, this outbreak will either go pandemic or burn out. This cannot become an endemic situation because there's no reservoir for the virus. The only reason this virus is endemic in Nigeria and the DRC is its presence in animals.
 
And one more additional thought...might the unusual transmission pattern and unusual location of symptoms be the result of an unusual method of exposure to the virus? In the wild in places like Nigeria, the cases are typically infected through the skin by animal contact or in the digestive tract in the case of eating an infected animal. These cases seem to be having viral exposure in the genitals and on the mucus membranes. Is it possible the unusual epidemiology here is a change in the route of exposure and not a change in the virus itself?
 
(I came across this from April 2022)

Monkeypox in Texas, What Happened

April 8, 2022 • 5:55 am CDT

(Precision Vaccinations)

The U.S. CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published today reviewed the monkeypox virus cases confirmed in a U.S. resident who had returned to Dallas, Texas, from Nigeria in July 2021.

The Dallas County Health and Human Services Laboratory Response Network laboratory-confirmed, by real-time polymerase chain reaction, the presence of nonvariola orthopoxvirus DNA from this Nigerian traveler from lesion swabs, confirming the West African clade Monkeypox virus.

The patient received tecovirimat, an antiviral for treating orthopoxvirus infections and recovered.

...Four months after this case in Texas, an eighth travel-associated monkeypox case in a traveler from Nigeria occurred, also in the U.S., prompting CDC to issue a Level 1 Travel Health Notice for travel to Nigeria.

https://www.precisionvaccinations.com/2022/04/08/monkeypox-texas-what-happened
 
@InfectiousDz


Monkeypox in provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
#Sankuru (468 cases, 36.4 %)
#Tshopo (169 cases, 13.2 %)
#Equateur (168 cases, 13.1 %)
#Tshuapa (108 cases, 8.4 %)
accounted for approximately 3/4 of reported suspected cases (913 cases, i.e. 71.1 %)

10:02 PM · May 20, 2022·Twitter Web App


ZCba2WNz_bigger.png
​
OMS RDC

@OMSRDCONGO

Les provinces du #Sankuru (468 cas, 36,4%), de la #Tshopo (169 cas, 13,2%), de l’#Equateur (168 cas, 13,1%), de la #Tshuapa (108 cas, 8,4%) ont comptabilisé environ 3/4 de cas suspects rapportés (913 cas, soit 71,1%).

https://twitter.com/InfectiousDz/sta...Cx1cTBgLQqAAAA
 
@InfectiousDz



From the beginning of 2022 until May 08, at least 1,284 suspected cases of #monkeypox including 58 deaths (lethality 4.5 %) have been reported in 87 health zones in 18 provinces of the DRR @WHO supports response through in-depth investigations and medical supplies


ZCba2WNz_bigger.png
​
OMS RDC

@OMSRDCONGO

Depuis le début de 2022 jusqu’au 08 mai dernier, au moins 1 284 cas suspects de #monkeypox dont 58 décès (létalité 4,5%) ont été rapportés dans 87 zones de santé réparties dans 18 provinces de @WHO soutient les investigations approfondies, en plus des fournitures médicales

4:46 AM · May 20, 2022·Twitter Web App
 
The virus in the DRC is a different strain of the virus and is unrelated to the cases in North America and Europe. Most of the cases in the DRC are also the result of exposure to infected animals or animal products, and represent minimal if any H2H spread.
 
A lot of cases have a history of traveling from Nigeria. Perhaps patients traveled around Africa before boarding at the airport.
No info on what strain is globally spreading, that I've seen.
 
First monkeypox genome from latest outbreak shows links to 2018 strain

20 May 2022
Michael LePage

The first draft genome of the virus responsible for the rapidly growing monkeypox outbreak has been released online by a team in Portugal. The DNA sequence shows it is of the mild West African type and most closely related to the monkeypox viruses detected in the UK, Singapore and Israel in 2018 and 2019.

What isn’t yet clear is whether this virus has any changes that make it more transmissible in humans, which would explain why the current outbreak is so widespread and by far the largest seen outside Central and West Africa, where the virus spreads in monkeys. This could take some time to establish, given that monkeypox has a large and complex genome.

At the time of writing, there were 127 confirmed and suspected cases of monkeypox in 10 countries, including the US, UK and Australia, and researchers suspect the true numbers are even higher.

João Paulo Gomes and colleagues at the National Institute of Health in Portugal sequenced a sample taken from a male patient on 4 May. Teams in other countries are also sequencing viral samples from the outbreak, but Gomes’s team is the first to make a sequence public.

Gustavo Palacios at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, says the draft sequence from Portugal has too many gaps to draw firm conclusions, but that he has seen a more complete sequence from a team in Belgium. “As far as I can see, it seems to be identical to the one in the UK in 2018,” says Palacios. “That is a little bit odd.”

In 2018, there were three cases in the UK after someone returning from Nigeria infected two other members of their household.

As more samples are sequenced, it should become clear whether, as suspected, a single variant of monkeypox is responsible for all the cases in the latest outbreak.

https://www.newscientist.com/article...o-2018-strain/
 
Report of Monkeypox cases in 2018 in the United Kingdom

Published on 14 Feb 2019

Author: Mohana Priya Kunasekaran

DOI: http://doi.org/10.31646/gbio.22

... The first case of monkeypox recorded in the UK and in the European Union (EU) was on 8 September 2018, in a Nigerian resident residing at a naval base in Cornwall, UK (1, 2). The patient was suspected to have been infected in Nigeria before travelling to the UK.

... From previous outbreaks, the CFR has been between 1-10% (18). Two genetic clades of monkeypox virus, the West African Clade and Congo Basic clade, have been defined in the literature. According to available data, the Congo basic clade in more common than the West African clade and is endemic to the DRC (19). The West African Clade is associated with milder disease and fewer deaths and has a CFR <1%, while the Congo Basin clade has CFR up to 11% and previously documented human-human transmission (20).

In September-December 2017, the West African clade was identified in the Nigerian outbreak and, based on NCDC data, had a CFR of 2.9% with 68 confirmed cases from 197 suspected cases across 22 states (14). In 2018, based on NCDC data, the CFR was 2.2% with 45 confirmed cases from 114 suspected cases across 13 states. The same West African clade was reported (15).

https://jglobalbiosecurity.com/artic...31646/gbio.22/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top