London (AP) – Scientists Observing Many Monkey Flower Outbreaks Africa are said to be amazed at the recent spread of the disease in Europe and North America.
Outbreaks of chickenpox have previously been reported in people only in Central and West Africa. But last week, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the US, Sweden and Canada all reported infections, mostly among young people who had never traveled to Africa.
France, Germany, Belgium and Australia confirmed their first cases on Friday.
“I was shocked here. “Every day I wake up and more and more countries are infected,” said Oivel Tomor, a virologist who previously headed the Nigerian Academy of Sciences and sits on several boards of the World Health Organization.
“It’s not a spread like we’ve seen in West Africa, so maybe there’s something new happening in the West,” he said.
No one has died in the blast so far. The monkey flower often causes fever, chills, rash, and sores on the face or genitals. The World Health Organization estimates that the disease is fatal for every 10 people, but chickenpox vaccines are protective and some antiviral drugs are in development.
British health representatives They study whether the disease is transmitted through sexual intercourse. Health officials asked doctors and nurses to pay attention to potential cases, but said the risk to the general population was low. The European Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends isolating all suspected cases and offering chickenpox vaccine to people at high risk.
According to the World Health Organization, Nigeria records 3,000 cases of flower monkeys per year. Outbreaks appear to be worsening in rural areas where people have close contact with infected rats and squirrels, Tomor said. He said many cases are likely to disappear.
Dr Ifeayo Adetifa, head of the country’s Center for Disease Control, said none of the Nigerian contacts of British patients had any symptoms and the investigation was underway.
The director of the World Health Organization for Europe, Dr Hans Kluge, called the outbreak “atypical” and said the outbreak in many parts of the continent suggests that “transmission has been happening for a long time.” He said most cases in Europe were mild.
On Friday, the UK’s Health and Safety Agency announced 11 new cases of monkeypox and said a “significant percentage” of the latest infections in the UK and Europe involved young men who had never traveled to Africa. being gay, bisexual or having sex. In men.
Authorities in Spain and Portugal also said their cases had been reported of young men who primarily had sex with other men and said these cases were reported when injured men appeared at sexual clinics. health.
Experts stressed that they did not know whether the disease was spread through sexual intercourse or through other close sexual intercourse related to intercourse.
Nigeria has not seen sexual transmission, Tomor said, but noted that viruses that were initially not known to be sexually transmitted, such as Ebola, were later confirmed after larger outbreaks showed different spread pattern.
The same may be true for monkey chickenpox, Tomor says.
In Germany, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said the government was confident the outbreak could be prevented. He said the sequence of the virus was determined to determine if there were any genetic changes that could be more contagious.
Rolf Gustafsson, professor of infectious diseases, told Swedish broadcaster SVT that it is “very difficult” to imagine that the situation is getting worse.
“We will certainly find more cases in Sweden, but I don’t think there will be an epidemic in any way,” Gustafson said. “Nothing to suggest so far.”
Scientists say that while it is possible that the first patient in the outbreak became infected with the disease while in Africa, what is happening now is special.
“We have never seen this happen in Europe,” said Christian Happ, director of the African Center for Infectious Diseases Genomics. “We have found nothing to say that the ways monkeys are delivered have changed in Africa. So, if something strange is happening in Europe, Europe should investigate.
Happi also mentioned that the cessation of the chickenpox vaccination campaign following the eradication of the disease in 1980 may have inadvertently driven the spread of the monkeys. Chickenpox vaccines also protect against monkeys, but widespread vaccination was stopped decades ago.
“Apart from people in West and Central Africa who may have had little immunity to monkey pollen in the past, not having the chickenpox vaccination means that no one has any immunity to monkeys,” Hapi said.
Shabir Mahdi, a professor of vaccines at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said a detailed study of the outbreak in Europe, including determining who the first patients were, was now important.
“We really need to understand how it started and why the virus is spreading now,” he said. “Monkey flower outbreaks are controlled and rare in Africa. If things are changing now, we really need to understand why.”
Gair Moulson in Berlin, Ian M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Chinadu Asadu in Lagos, Nigeria, and AP reporters across Europe contributed to this report.
The Associated Press Department of Health and Science receives support from the Science Education Department of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. AP is solely responsible for all content.
Source: Huffpost
I’m Liza Grey, an experienced news writer and author at the Buna Times. I specialize in writing about economic issues, with a focus on uncovering stories that have a positive impact on society. With over seven years of experience in the news industry, I am highly knowledgeable about current events and the ways in which they affect our daily lives.