Speaker 1: Anytime a virus is spreading in a way that it hasn't before and with monkeypox. What we're seeing with this outbreak was that it was spreading amongst people who had no contact with the endemic region. It deserves attention
Speaker 2: As countries around the world, transition their response to the coronavirus from pandemic to endemic health experts are growing concerned about a recent outbreak of monkeypox starting in early may on May 26th. The world health organization reported that there were 260 confirmed [00:00:30] cases and more under investigation in 21 countries, including the us, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, and several other European countries. A few days earlier, Belgium instituted a mandatory 21 day quarantine for monkeypox patients. Currently the us centers for disease control and prevention is investigating 10 cases of monkeypox across eight states. The first confirmed case in the us was found in a man from Massachusetts. Who'd recently traveled [00:01:00] to Canada while monkeypox can be severe and even fatal experts agree that the current outbreak is unlikely to become another pandemic.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of attention to monkeypox that probably wouldn't have been there where it not for the COVID 19 pandemic ongoing and a keen interest in infectious disease, each virus and each virus outbreak is unique, has different biological characteristics and not every viral outbreak or epidemic has pandemic potential. And that's certainly the case with monkeypox
Speaker 2: Here's everything you need to know about. Monkeypox the recent [00:01:30] outbreak and how to stay safe. Monkeypox was first discovered in colonies of monkeys in the 1950s considered a Zana disease. It can be transmitted from animals to humans with the first human case of monkeypox documented in 1970 monkeypox is caused by an ortho ox virus. Part of the smallpox family symptoms include rashes with blisters fever, headaches, fatigue, muscle ache, swelling, and back pain though. Monkeypox is not as contagious as the coronavirus or as severe as smallpox. [00:02:00] It can still spread in a variety of ways.
Speaker 1: It's not as contagious. As for example, a respiratory virus monkeypox can be transmitted through close contact and requires close contact. And that might involve skin to skin contact that might involve respiratory respiratory droplets that go maybe three feet or so, or also articles of clothing that could be contaminated.
Speaker 2: The disease can also be transmitted via bodily fluids and sexual contact. The majority of those currently infected are men under 50, who identify as gay and bisexual.
Speaker 1: [00:02:30] If you are going to any event where there may be multiple sexual partners or that type of contact going on, you need to be alert that this is spreading in those populations.
Speaker 2: While most cases are mild monkeypox can kill as many as one in 10 people who contract the disease based on observations in central and west Africa, where the disease is believed to be endemic. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has recorded 58 deaths annually 1300 suspected cases since the beginning of 2022.
Speaker 1: If you look to the, the outbreak that occurred in the United States [00:03:00] in 2003, where there were about four dozen cases, only three cases were severe and there was no fatality rate. So it it's, it's unlikely. I think that we see a high level of fatality with this disease. It, it may be less than much, less than 1% in this outbreak, in the industrial world.
Speaker 2: Most children and adults with healthy immune systems are likely to avoid severe illness if they contract monkeypox. But there are two high risk groups, children, six years old and younger who are not affected by the current outbreak and adults age 55 [00:03:30] and older. However, studies show that this age group may be protected by decades. Old smallpox vaccinations immunizations for smallpox in the us stopped in 1972 with the world health assembly, declaring smallpox eradicated in 1980, no cases of naturally occurring smallpox have happened since.
Speaker 1: So we've got two vaccines. Those are the main states of what we're going to do. And it's not that you vaccinate everybody. You don't have to do that. You vaccinate the, the close contacts of cases in something called ring vaccination, [00:04:00] where you basically make a ring around the case with vaccine, meaning the, the person there, you have a case and you find the contacts and you vaccinate all those contacts. And that prevents the infected from spreading outwards. That's a lesson learned from the smallpox eradication campaigns.
Speaker 2: Monkeypox takes up to 12 days to cause symptoms and usually lasts between two and four weeks. However, people who contract monkeypox are not contagious until they start showing symptoms. A key component in the controllability of an infectious disease, which gives [00:04:30] doctors a window after exposure to vaccinate and halt infection. The last known case of smallpox occurred in 1949. The last monkeypox outbreak in the United States was in 2003. This most recent outbreak shows infectious disease experts. That global populations are still vulnerable for the smallpox virus and its related variants.
Speaker 1: The biggest question with this monkey box outbreak, as opposed to others, was trying to get a handle on that epidemiology so that it would be easier to implement countermeasures that we know [00:05:00] can stop monkey box outbreaks.
Speaker 2: The w H O recommends avoiding close contact with anyone who has symptoms of monkeypox by social distancing, wearing a mask and regularly cleaning frequently touched items. If you think you may have contracted, monkeypox get advice from a medical professional, isolated home and wear a mask while practicing social distancing, the us food and drug administration approved the vaccine for adults age 18 and older [00:05:30] to prevent monkeypox since monkeypox is so closely related to smallpox. Vaccines used for smallpox are also effective. As the outbreak continues to spread the us and other countries are beginning to stockpile vaccine doses.
Speaker 1: This particular outbreak seems to be confined to specific social and, and, and sexual network. So the risk to the general public is low, especially now that the epidemiology has been elucidated, because now we can use things like vaccines to, uh, vaccinate [00:06:00] contacts of cases, and that should halt the spread of this virus within the communities that it's spreading it.
Speaker 2: The world health organization is responding to the outbreak as a high priority, expecting it to be far more widespread. As more doctors look for signs and symptoms for now, the us is simply keeping an eye on the outbreak without implementing stricter safety measures.
Speaker 1: When the press and the public are interested in infectious diseases, it actually promotes governments and public health agencies to be more proactive and more aggressive because they recognize [00:06:30] that the public thinks this is important to deal with. And that that may help us with resiliencies to future infectious disease emergencies.
