The World Health Organization issued a serious warning with the discovery of 4 more cases of monkeypox in the UK.
According to the UK’s Health Security Agency, the new cases discovered in London and north-east England have no known link to the three previous infections.
Monkeypox is a virus commonly found in central and western Africa and can be transmitted by contact and exposure to exhaled droplets.
The World Health Organization says symptoms can be mild or severe, and can include lesions that may be very itchy or painful.
Currently, UKHSA has established joint contact with two of the last four infected cases.
The government health authority is also investigating links with the virus, and the World Health Organization said in a statement: “With any illness during travel or upon return from an endemic area, the health professional must be informed, including information about travel history and recent immunization, and residents and travelers to Affected countries avoid contact with sick animals (dead or live) that can harbor the monkeypox virus (rodents, marsupials and monkeys), and they must refrain from eating or handling wild animals or their meat, and the importance of hand hygiene must be emphasized using soap and water, or disinfectants that are contain alcohol.
While a vaccine and specific treatment for monkeypox was recently approved, in 2019 and 2022 respectively, these countermeasures are not yet widely available.”
The UKHSA noted that none of the new cases had visited a country where monkeypox, a virus that kills up to 10% of the infected population, is endemic.
In the last month, a total of 7 cases were identified; The first was a recent return from Nigeria, where he is believed to have contracted the virus.
Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical advisor at UKHSA, said: ‘This is rare and unusual, and the evidence suggests that there may be transmission of monkeypox virus in the community, spread by close contact.
According to a statement from the World Health Organization: “Since September 2017, Nigeria has continued to report monkeypox cases, and from September 2017 to April 30, 2022, a total of 558 suspected cases have been reported from 32 states of the country. 241 cases were confirmed, including 8 deaths, “the death rate of cases is 3.3%.”
The most prominent symptom of monkeypox is a rash that begins on the face and then spreads to the rest of the body.
According to the BBC, the health authorities in Britain announced another case of monkeypox for a person who traveled to Nigeria in the recent period, and was diagnosed with the virus in England.
Below we review the most important information available about this rare and unknown disease.
How far can it spread?
The cause of monkeypox infection is a virus of the same name, which is from the same family as common smallpox, but experts believe that it is less dangerous than it, and that the chances of infection with it are small.
This is the first appearance of the virus in Britain, as it spreads most often in remote areas of Central and West African countries near tropical rainforests, and there are two strains of this virus; They are the Central African breed and the West African breed.
Two of the monkeypox patients in Britain recently came from Nigeria, which suggests that they were infected with West African strain – a strain that shows mild symptoms, but this has not yet been confirmed.
As for the third case, it is for a health care worker to whom the infection was transmitted from one of the infected people.
What are the symptoms of the disease?
Symptoms of monkeypox include fever, headache, bloating, backache, muscle aches, and lethargy.
Once the temperature rises, a rash appears beginning on the face, then moves to other parts of the body, but it is most often in the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, and the infection disappears without medical intervention after symptoms last for about 14 to 21 days.
How can you get sick?
The disease is transmitted to a person when in contact with people with the virus, and the virus may enter the body through cracks in the skin, the respiratory tract, or through the eyes, nose, or mouth.
It can also be transmitted from an infected animal, such as monkeys, rats and squirrels, to humans or from surfaces and objects contaminated with the virus such as bedding and clothing.
How dangerous is this virus?
Most infections with this virus are mild, sometimes similar to chickenpox, and disappear without medical intervention in a few weeks.
Sometimes the injury may be more serious. Deaths from the disease have also been recorded in West Africa.
There is no cure for the virus that causes monkeypox yet, but its symptoms disappear within a few weeks without medical intervention.
How likely is the disease to spread?
The disease was discovered for the first time after a monkey infected with it in captivity, and since 1970 there has been an intermittent spread of the disease from time to time in ten African countries.
The virus spread to the United States in 2003, which was the first time that the disease had appeared outside Africa. The disease was transmitted to the United States at that time through contact with a prairie dog, to which the infection was transmitted from some mammals imported from abroad. The number of infected cases at that time was 81, but no deaths were recorded due to the virus.
In 2017, Nigeria witnessed the largest documented outbreak in about 40 years from the appearance of the last confirmed case in the country, as there were 172 suspected cases, and 75% of those infected during this outbreak were men of the age group from 21 to 40 years.
what is the cure?
There is no cure for monkeypox, but the spread can be reduced by some restrictions that prevent transmission.
There is a vaccine against chickenpox that has been proven to be 85 percent effective in preventing infection, and it is still used occasionally.
Is it cause for concern?
Experts believe that Britain is not facing an imminent spread of the virus, according to Public Health England, which said that the disease does not pose a threat to public health.
“The fact that only one person out of every fifty people who come into close contact with people infected with monkeypox shows how low the chances of transmission,” said Jonathan Ball, a professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham.
“It is wrong to think that we are on the verge of spreading the disease across the country,” he added.
Nick Fane, deputy head of national infection control at Public Health England, said: “It is essential to stress that monkeypox does not spread easily between humans and that its public health risk is very low.
The Public Health Authority in England is following up the cases of contacts of infected people who have been confirmed to be infected to provide medical advice and monitor them, as necessary.