The first case of monkeypox has been confirmed in Germany as announced by the Bundeswehr Institute for Microbiology in Munich. The virus was detected in a patient on Thursday after showing characteristic skin changes.
Monkeypox – causes and how it can be transmitted
The monkeypox disease is caused by a virus. The pathogen was first detected in 1958 in monkeys in a Danish laboratory. According to World Health Organization (WHO), the viral disease originates from animals and is typically found in the tropical rain forest areas of Central and West Africa.
Out of the cases recorded, it has been established that the virus seem to be spreading mainly between homosexual and bisexual men.
Another possibility is that the virus first was first carried to that group of people and spread from there. According to RKI, transmission to humans generally occurs through contact with infected animals or animal bloods and secretions, eating infected monkey meat and through droplet infection.
Another disease caused by the virus from the same group is smallpox. Before vaccination campaigns in the 1980s, this disease caused great terror and a lot of people infected lost their lives.
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Is there a vaccine for monkeypox and what are the symptoms?
According to the British Authority UKHSA, the virus causes mild symptoms which can have severe courses. Experts have considered the disease very unlikely to be fatal in the Western countries but it’s also not impossible.
Some of the symptoms associated with the monkeypox include sudden onset of fever, severe headache, backpain, sorethroat, cough and often swollen lymph nodes, according to the UKHSA, the rush can also cause chickenpox or syphilis at certain stages of the disease.
For now, there is no approved vaccine yet against monkeypox but a chickenpox vaccination protects against monkeypox. Paul hunter of the University of East Anglia suggests that the vaccine can help quite effectively and can be used by contact persons
Back in Africa, the western variant only kills one percent of those infected. There is also a central Africa variant with ten percent of those cases being fatal. Western countries that have already confirmed the virus include Britain, Spain, Portugal and Sweden.