Monkeypox/Mpox

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that it would start using the term “mpox” for monkeypox, which has infected about 80,000 people in the first major outbreak of the viral disease outside Africa that began early this summer.

• The change of name, announced after a series of consultations with global experts, has been provoked by the racist connotations that “monkeypox” sometimes carries.
• Monkeypox, which was named in 1970 because the virus that causes the disease was first discovered in captive monkeys in 1958, does not have much to do with monkeys. 

Monkeypox

• Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease (a disease that is transmitted from infected animals to humans) that occurs primarily in tropical rainforest areas of Central and West Africa and is occasionally exported to other regions.
• Monkeypox belongs to the orthopoxvirus, which is a genus of viruses that also includes the variola virus which causes smallpox.

Symptoms

• It begins with a fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, and exhaustion. 
• It also causes the lymph nodes to swell (lymphadenopathy), which smallpox does not.

Source of Transmission: 

• Human-to-human transmission is very limited. However, transmission, when it occurs, can be through contact with bodily fluids, lesions on the skin or on internal mucosal surfaces, such as in the mouth or throat, respiratory droplets and contaminated objects.

Outbreaks

• The first case of monkeypox was reported in 1958 in monkeys and in humans in 1970 in the western Africa.
• Nigeria witnessed the biggest outbreak of the disease in 2017.
• Thereafter, the disease has been reported in many countries including the USA, Singapore, UK.

Incubation Period

• The incubation period (time from infection to symptoms) for monkeypox is usually 7-14 days but can range from 5-21 days.

Treatment

• There is no safe, proven treatment for monkeypox yet. The WHO recommends supportive treatment depending on the symptoms. Awareness is important for the prevention and control of the infection.

Difference from smallpox

• The main difference between symptoms of smallpox and monkeypox is that the latter causes lymph nodes to swell (lymphadenopathy) while smallpox does not.

Present Cases

• The majority of reported cases of monkeypox currently are in males, and most of these cases occur among males who identified themselves as gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM), in urban areas, and are clustered in social and sexual networks.

Question: What are the symptoms of monkeypox? How does it different from smallpox.