Rare monkeypox outbreak in U.K., Europe and U.S.: What is it and should we worry?

Symptoms of the monkeypox virus are shown on a patient's hand, from a 2003 case in the U.S. In most instances, the disease causes fever and painful, pus-filled blisters. New cases in the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal are spreading possibly through sexual contact, which had not previously been linked to monkeypox transmission.

Monkeypox can be a nasty illness, which causes a fever, body aches, enlarged lymph nodes and eventually"pox" or painful, fluid-filled blisters on the face, hands and feet. One version of monkeypox is quite deadly and kills up to 10% of people infected. The version currently in England is more mild. Its fatality rate is less than 1%. A case generally resolves in 2 to 4 weeks.

In the U.S., the case in Massachusetts had not recently traveled to countries where the disease occurs but had visited Canada. Here are some of the questions we asked and some of their surprising answers, updated in light of the current cases."The name is actually a little bit of a misnomer," Rimoin says. Perhaps it should be called"rodentpox" instead.

"There is no evidence, to date, that person-to-person transmission alone can sustain monkeypox infections in the human population," the World Health OrganizationScientists don't know yet if the rate of transmission has increased in this current outbreak. That enhanced transmission is one reason why the current outbreak appears to have spread through the community in three cities."There already was!" Hooper says."But it was quickly contained.

There are several other viruses related to smallpox, including cowpox and camelpox."I would be more worried about camelpox than monkeypox," Rimion says,"because that's closer on the genetic tree to smallpox."A little bit of both, Rimion says. That means small monkeypox outbreaks in West and Central Africa now have dozens of cases instead of just one or two, Hooper says.

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