Several ongoing studies are attempting to determine whether genetic changes in monkeypox The World Health Organization (WHO) told AFP on Wednesday that it is contributing to the rapid spread of the disease.
Two separate clades or variants of the virus have been called virus clades. Basin of the Congo (Central Africa) and West Africa, two regions for which they are endemic.
But on Friday WHO renamed the groups into clade I and clade II, respectively, to avoid the risk of geographic stigmatization.
He also announced that clade II has two subclades, IIa and IIb, with viruses within the latter identified as being responsible for the current global outbreak.
On Wednesday, the health agency UN clades IIa and IIb are stated to be related and share a recent common ancestor, so IIb is not a branch of IIa.
Mutation research
clade IIb contains viruses collected in the 1970s and as of 2017.
“Looking at the genome, you see some genetic differences between the viruses in the current outbreak and the older clade IIb viruses,” the scientist said. WHO to AFP.
“However, nothing is known about the relevance of these genetic changes, and research is ongoing to determine the impact (if any) of these mutations on disease transmission and severity,” he added.
In addition, “it is still early, both during the outbreak and in laboratory studies, to know whether the increase in infections is due to observed changes in the virus genotype or to host factors” in humans.
Outbreaks of monkeypox infections began to be reported in May outside endemic countries in Africa.
WHO Declared it an international public health emergency on July 23.
were reported WHO more 35000 cases in 92 countries with 12 deaths.
Almost all new cases are registered in Europe and America and experts studied samples of these cases.
“Diversity among the viruses responsible for the current outbreak is minimal, and there are no obvious genotypic differences between viruses from non-endemic countries,” the agency explained. WHO.
New name
Meanwhile, WHO announced his plan to change the name to monkeypox It will take “months”.
The organization has raised concerns about the name, which experts say is misleading.
Name monkeypox comes from the fact that the virus was originally identified in monkeys used for research in Denmark in 1958.
However, the disease is most common in rodents, and the current outbreak is human-to-human transmission.
WHO sought help from the public to determine a new name with a web page where anyone can make suggestions.
(According to AFP)
Source: RPP
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