I am sure you have seen this headline on social media, news or radio. But what exactly is monkeypox? What is a public health emergence? And what should I care about it?

Monkeypox is a viral disease transmitted from animals to humans (viral zoonosis). This is a double-stranded DNA virus (orthopoxvirus)  belonging to the Poxviridae family and usually is more frequently found in central and western Africa. The animal hosts (rodents and primates) mostly belong to tropical rainforests.

But, how did the outbreak begin?

The first case of monkeypox was identified in 1970, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a 9-month-old boy. Since then, human cases of monkeypox have been reported in 11 African countries, such as Benin, Cameroon, Gabon, Liberia, Nigeria and the Republic of Congo. Then, in 2003 the first monkeypox outbreak outside of Africa was in the United States reported 70 cases and was linked to contact with infected pet prairie dogs that were in contact with Gambian pouched rats and doormats imported from Ghana.

An article from 2019 from Reynolds, M. G et al. (you can find it here) was already recommending the One Health approach to tackling the monkeypox virus in heavily forested regions of West and Central Africa. However, the efforts weren’t enough. Monkeypox was declared a global health emergency in July 2022 and more than 16,000 cases have been reported across more than 70 countries this year; Europe and the US are the regions with more widespread cases.

Recently the US also declared monkeypox a public health emergency on August 4^th 2022, as this country comprises 30% of confirmed infections.

How is its transmission?

It is a zoonotic disease, as we said before, this means animal to human transmission that can occur from direct contact with the blood, bodily fluids or cutaneous or mucosal lesions of infected animals. Eating or consuming meat without cooking it from infected animals is a risk factor too.

But not only the transmission can occur from animal to humans, like COVID-19, but the transmission can also occur from humans to humans by having close contact with respiratory secretions, skin lesions of an infected person or contaminated personal objects (towels, bed sheets, etc). It also can occur from mothers to their babies through the placenta (the little organ that feeds the fetus) or during close contact after birth. Some studies have declared that close sexual contact can help to spread the disease, but more studies have to be done to fully understand its behaviour.

Ok, I get what monkeypox is, but how can I recognize the disease? which are the symptoms?

Most of the infectious diseases have an incubation period (time period from when you get the infection to when you start having symptoms). In monkeypox, this incubation period is usually from 6 to 13 days but can last up to 21 days.

There are two periods of the disease, and we have created a diagram which can make you understand this better:

The disease usually limits itself, but the symptoms can last from 2 to 4 weeks, however if the immune system is not strong enough the disease can lead to complications such as infection of the brain, blood or eyes.  And after all this information, you may be wondering how can I protect myself and others?

One Health Action is here to help…

If you are in close contact with someone that has the disease:

• Don’t touch the lesions
• Try to not have close contact with this person or with their saliva, tears or sweat
• Try to not have sex with them, this is not a sexually transmitted disease, but the close contact can help to spread it.

But if you’re not in close contact and you want to protect yourself from getting the disease:

• Try to not go to crowded places (concerts, big parties or nightclubs)
• Share your drinks with people you don’t know
• hare your personal belongings (towels, bed sheets)

As this disease can be also transmitted through respiratory secretions you should continue wearing a face mask in crowded places.

Remember this is a zoonotic disease, if you have close contact with wild animals, try to protect yourself always, and prevent touching their blood or meat.

But, what if I already have the disease… Is there any treatment?

The treatment is for the symptoms (headache or fever) and the skin lesions. Vaccination is also important, as vaccines are being developed to help the immune system in fighting the disease.

More information at WHO and CDC