With more than 700 cases of monkeypox in France, contamination continues to multiply. What are the symptoms and how is this disease that is so much talked regarding transmitted? Explanations.
The health authorities have identified 721 proven cases of monkeypox, as of July 8, 2022. An incomprehensible broadcast for this tropical diseaseusually present only in certain areas of the African continent.
Primarily animal transmission
Monkeypox is an infectious disease and contagious. It is a virus of the smallpox family. It is widespread among around 20 animal species, including primates and rodents, and has been transmitted to humans since the 1970s.
It can be transmitted from animals to humans but also between humans. Contaminations occur through direct contact with the sangfluids bodilythem mucous membranes or the skinbut also by respiratory secretions (the sputters broadcast when we speak). It therefore takes prolonged face-to-face interaction for the disease to be transmitted.
Public Health France has shown that the majority of people affected by Monkeypox, another name for monkey pox, are men with sex with men and with different partners. However, it is not a sexually transmitted disease or a disease that concerns only the homosexual community, but the close and prolonged contact involved in sexual intercourse allow the circulation of the virus.
Various symptoms
Screening for this disease can be complex at first because the first symptoms strongly resemble those of the flu or Covid-19: headache, fever, muscle aches, chillsand a swollen glands around the ears, in the neck and the nape of the neck.
This first wave of symptoms appears following an incubation period of up to from 5 to 21 days. Then following the first symptoms boutons appear they can manifest themselves on the whole body “in particular the palms and soles of the feet, the face and the scalp.
Depending on the mode of contamination, these lesions can affect the anogenital region and oral mucosa“according to the ARS.
This is when the contagion is greatest. Health authorities therefore advise covering the pimples with a bandage or cloth to avoid contamination.
