“No case of monkeypox has been found in Lebanon so far. To this reassuring information, communicated to L’Orient-Le Jour by the local office of the World Health Organization, is added a series of good news. According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, “the probability of contagion in the population is generally very low”. “In most cases, the disease is not serious. It disappears spontaneously following a few weeks”, also underlines the WHO. Hence the press release published two days ago by the technical officer for monkeypox within the UN organization, Dr Rosemund Lewis: “At the moment, the WHO is not worried regarding a pandemic. . She rates the overall global public health risk as “moderate”.
Atypical attacks that challenge
However, vigilance is required, because the disease, which appeared in Congo and has been active in Central and West Africa for around fifty years, has recently been exported to Europe and North America. Now observed in 23 countries where the disease is not endemic, it has more than 33 confirmed cases in France, more than 60 in Spain and more than 179 in the United Kingdom. Moreover, the WHO notes a large majority of “atypical” attacks, “without any established link with travelers from countries in the endemic zone”. “The early epidemiology of the first cases reported to WHO by countries shows that the cases were mainly reported in men who have sex with men”, specifies the UN organization. Dr. Lewis’ fears also relate to the possibility that individuals “might contract this high-risk infection if they do not have the information they need to protect themselves”.
Because it is indeed a high-risk infection, “which can lead to complications”, even “death in newborns and people with an underlying immune deficiency”, according to the WHO. It is in this state of affairs that the world, scalded by the Covid-19 pandemic which has caused the death of 13 to 17 million people since December 2019, is mobilizing to deal with monkeypox, possibly by the through a smallpox vaccination campaign for populations at risk.
Back to a disease related to smallpox (the most serious form) and chicken pox (the least serious form), known as monkeypox in English. Caused by the monkeypox virus, it can be transmitted to humans from animals and can also be transmitted from person to person. Its symptoms resemble, but less severe, those observed in the past in subjects with smallpox, and generally disappear on their own without the need for treatment: fever, severe headache, muscle aches, back pain, fatigue, swollen lymph nodes, rash or lesions. The rashes usually focus on the face, hands, and soles of the feet, but they can also appear in the mouth, around the eyes, and on the genitals. They go through several phases before forming a crust and falling off.
Vaccinate populations at risk once morest smallpox
Faced with this uncertainty, the Lebanese authorities are preparing to confront the virus. “Lebanon is preparing for the arrival of monkeypox. He asked the WHO to help him build up a stock of smallpox vaccine,” reveals to L’Orient-Le Jour Dr. Jacques Mokhbat, specialist in infectious diseases, also a member of the National Committee for Infectious Diseases. It should be noted that several smallpox vaccines provide some protection once morest monkeypox. “It will be necessary to vaccinate people at risk, contact cases, the elderly, young children and the immunocompromised,” he says. As a reminder, smallpox having been eradicated, vaccination was interrupted worldwide during the 1970s.
Dr. Mokhbat, however, wants to be reassuring: “There is no reason, for the moment, to worry regarding a possible pandemic or to cause panic on a global scale”, he believes. And for good reason, “monkey pox is not transmitted through the air or through food”, but only “through close physical contact with a person showing symptoms, through clothing or objects contaminated with the virus”, or even by the pregnant woman to the fetus through the placenta. In addition, “like all DNA viruses, it is a stable virus which does not mutate easily, unlike Covid-19, an RNA virus which can have several mutations”, specifies the specialist.
Except that the diagram transmitted by the WHO is not necessarily convincing for all. “It is a fact that at this stage, monkeypox is not pandemic and does not appear to pose a serious danger”, recognizes Dr. Eid Azar, associate professor of infectious diseases. But in the face of communications from the WHO, which he describes as “political”, he maintains that “no one knows for the time being the viral dynamics of monkey pox”. And even if there is no sign of rapid transmission of the virus, and that we must not give in to panic, he believes that “the forms of transmission observed are bizarre” and that “the virus circulates at a certain degree outside the endemic area”. “Without a doubt, it will arrive in Lebanon”, sooner or later. Hence the need “to keep an eye on the disease”.
For the moment, it is therefore necessary to respect the health instructions recommended by the WHO, avoiding all close contact, including sexual contact, with a person who has symptoms or by wearing a mask if contact is unavoidable. It is also necessary to wash hands, clean surfaces, bed linen and clothes. It is also necessary to ask the people you meet if they show symptoms of the disease. Finally, the WHO recalls that the use of condoms does not necessarily prevent the transmission of monkeypox.
“No case of monkeypox has been found in Lebanon so far. To this reassuring information, communicated to L’Orient-Le Jour by the local office of the World Health Organization, is added a series of good news. According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, “the likelihood of contagion in the population…
