WHO shares details on monkeypox
Miscellaneous / / June 02, 2022
You can get sick from contact with some pets, but cats and dogs most likely cannot be carriers.
The World Health Organization (WHO) continues to share new data on the situation with monkeypoxas the number of confirmed and suspected cases continues to rise worldwide.
More than 550 cases have now been confirmed in 30 countries where the disease is not endemic. Most cases are still in the UK at 179. There are 49 cases in Portugal, 26 in Canada and 10 in the US.
WHO Representative notedthat the disease has not yet spread so quickly and in so many regions of the world.
What we are seeing now is actually quite different. We see that all cases appear within a relatively short period of time. And that in just a couple of weeks we are seeing over 500 cases. This was not the case before.
Rosamund Lewis
technical manager of the WHO Health Emergencies Program
Monkeypox is not uncommon where it is endemic. For example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1,284 cases were reported between January 1 and May 8, 2022. But what is unusual is an increase in the number of diseases outside of such countries without any natural reservoir (animal) that carries the disease.
The natural reservoir of monkeypox still remains unexplored. However, rodents and rabbits are known to be susceptible to this disease. Cats and dogs are probably not infected. Transmission of the virus to pets such as hamsters, guinea pigs, chinchillas or rabbits should be avoided as they are more likely to become ill and can transmit the virus to other people in the home.
François Ballou
Professor of Biology at the UCL Institute of Genetics
The WHO also notes that the situation may only be gaining momentum, although the overall public health risk is still "moderate". It can be high if the disease becomes a human pathogen or if it spreads to vulnerable groups such as young children or immunocompromised people.
There is no specific vaccine against monkeypox, but vaccination against smallpox (blackpox) should provide protection. True, all over the world they stopped putting them back in the 1980s, when the disease was officially defeated. For this reason, older people who have been vaccinated in the past may now be most protected against monkeypox.
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