Apr 24, 2024 10:00 PM
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01167-5
EXCERPTS: Monkeypox virus can cause painful, fluid-filled lesions on the skin and, in severe cases, death. (While the disease was renamed ‘mpox’ in 2022, the virus continues to be called ‘monkeypox virus.’) The virus persists in wild animals in several African countries, including the DRC, and occasionally spills into people.
The first large reported outbreak with human-to-human transmission, which was in 2017 in Nigeria, caused more than 200 confirmed and 500 suspected cases of the disease. Researchers warned at the time that the virus might have adapted to spread through sexual contact.
Their warnings were not heeded; in 2022, a global outbreak driven in part by sexual contact prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a public health emergency. That ongoing outbreak is caused by a strain of monkeypox virus called clade II, which is less lethal than clade I, and has infected more than 94,000 people and killed more than 180.
[...] Health officials are so concerned that representatives of the DRC and 11 nearby countries met earlier this month to plan a response and to commit to stepping up surveillance for the virus. Only about 10% of the DRC’s suspected mpox cases in 2023 were tested, due to limited testing capacity, meaning health officials “don’t have a full picture of what’s going on”, Ndembi says.
Genetic analyses of the virus responsible for the outbreak show mutations such as the absence of a large chunk of the virus’s genome, which researchers have previously noted as a sign of monkeypox viral adaptation. This has led the study’s authors to give a new name to the strain circulating in the province: clade Ib.
Making matters more fraught, South Kivu borders Rwanda and Burundi and is grappling with “conflict, displacement, food insecurity, and challenges in providing adequate humanitarian assistance”, which “might represent fertile ground for further spread of mpox”, the WHO warned last year... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Monkeypox virus can cause painful, fluid-filled lesions on the skin and, in severe cases, death. (While the disease was renamed ‘mpox’ in 2022, the virus continues to be called ‘monkeypox virus.’) The virus persists in wild animals in several African countries, including the DRC, and occasionally spills into people.
The first large reported outbreak with human-to-human transmission, which was in 2017 in Nigeria, caused more than 200 confirmed and 500 suspected cases of the disease. Researchers warned at the time that the virus might have adapted to spread through sexual contact.
Their warnings were not heeded; in 2022, a global outbreak driven in part by sexual contact prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a public health emergency. That ongoing outbreak is caused by a strain of monkeypox virus called clade II, which is less lethal than clade I, and has infected more than 94,000 people and killed more than 180.
[...] Health officials are so concerned that representatives of the DRC and 11 nearby countries met earlier this month to plan a response and to commit to stepping up surveillance for the virus. Only about 10% of the DRC’s suspected mpox cases in 2023 were tested, due to limited testing capacity, meaning health officials “don’t have a full picture of what’s going on”, Ndembi says.
Genetic analyses of the virus responsible for the outbreak show mutations such as the absence of a large chunk of the virus’s genome, which researchers have previously noted as a sign of monkeypox viral adaptation. This has led the study’s authors to give a new name to the strain circulating in the province: clade Ib.
Making matters more fraught, South Kivu borders Rwanda and Burundi and is grappling with “conflict, displacement, food insecurity, and challenges in providing adequate humanitarian assistance”, which “might represent fertile ground for further spread of mpox”, the WHO warned last year... (MORE - missing details)