According to the WHO, monkeypox is not as contagious as smallpox
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has sounded its highest level of alert for monkeypox and declared the virus as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC).
Monkeypox is a zoonotic disease caused by the monkeypox virus, which belongs to the same family of viruses that causes smallpox. The disease is endemic in regions like West and Central Africa but lately, cases have been reported from non-endemic countries too, according to the WHO.
In India, a 34-year-old man from Delhi with no history of foreign travel tested positive for monkeypox on Sunday, taking the country's tally of cases to four. Three cases of monkeypox were earlier reported in Kerala.
How the monkeypox virus spreads?
Monkeypox can be transmitted to humans through a person or animal who is infected by the virus. It can also spread through material contaminated by the virus. One can contract monkeypox by coming in close contact with the body fluids, lesions, respiratory droplets, and materials like the bedding of the infected person.
Animal to human transmission of the virus can occur by getting in direct contact with the blood, bodily fluids, or cutaneous or mucosal lesions of the infected animal. Animals including tree squirrels, ropes squirrels, and many species of monkeys have been found to be infected by the virus.
Symptoms
According to the WHO, monkeypox is not as contagious as smallpox and does not cause severe illness. The incubation period of the virus or the period from the infection to the onset of symptoms is from 6 to 13 days. However, it can sometimes range between 5 and 21 days.
A person infected with the virus can experience fever, intense headache, back pain, myalgia (muscle aches), intense asthenia (lack of energy) and lymphadenopathy or swelling of the lymph nodes. These symptoms can last up to five days.
The skin eruption occurs usually after one to three days of the appearance of fever. The rashes appear more on the face and extremities of the body. In 95 per cent of monkeypox cases, the rashes affect the face while in 75 per cent of cases, it affects the palms of the hand and soles of the feet.
The rash can develop from macules or lesions with a flat base to papules or slightly raised firm lesions. It then evolves into vesicles or lesions with clear fluid and subsequently into pustules or lesions filled with yellowish fluid. The rash finally dries up and falls off.
Precautions
- To prevent the transmission of the monkeypox virus, one should avoid eating inadequately cooked meat and other animal products.
- Avoid getting in direct contact with the infected person.
- Physical distancing should be maintained with the people infected with the virus.
- Do not use material such as the bedding of the infected person which could be contaminated with the virus.