We all have questions about #monkeypox, right? I got to talk to yesterday with Andrea McCollum, who leads @CDCgov's poxvirus epidemiology team. She had answers. https://t.co/abIU2o0IEa
— Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 (@HelenBranswell) May 19, 2022
TL, DR: This is not, unlike covid, a new / unknown disease. It’s a close relative of smallpox, which means stockpiled smallpox vaccines provide pretty good immunity, as does previous smallpox inoculation. (Although those of us whose inoculation scars have faded probably shouldn’t rely entirely on our aging immune systems.) Monkeypox is mostly spread, according to current science, by direct contact with infected material: animal bites / scratches, touching an infected person’s lesions, contact with bedding or clothing that’s been soiled, and ‘prolonged’ respiratory exposure. If you’re worried, keep masking up in public places — especially airplanes! — and remember to wash or sanitize your hands frequently. Which, of course, we’re all pretty much doing anyway…
… Monkeypox causes a flu-like array of symptoms, but also comes with a distinctive rash; one telltale sign is the fact that lesions often appear on the palms of hands. So far it seems that the cases are being caused by viruses from the West African clade, which triggers milder disease than the other family of viruses, called the Congo Basin clade. All monkeypox viruses are cousins of the one that caused smallpox, the only human virus to have been eradicated.
STAT had many questions about monkeypox. Fortunately, Andrea McCollum, the poxvirus epidemiology team lead in the CDC’s division of high consequence pathogens and pathology, had many answers…
Do we know how efficient monkeypox virus is at transmitting from person to person?
Monkeypox is transmissible really from the time when signs or symptoms appear, throughout the entire course of illness. And the definition of “course of illness” is until all lesions have healed, crusts have separated, and a fresh layer of skin has formed. That can be quite a long period of time. That can be several weeks…I think we can take away a lot from what we know about monkeypox in Congo Basin and in West Africa. Even if human-to-human transmission is documented, it is generally documented among very close contacts. So family members, people taking care of ill patients. Or health care providers…
Are the lesions so distinctive that people will go see a doctor to get them looked at? Or might they think it was hives or something like that?
It depends on the person and it depends on the extent of the rash. I think certainly if people have a very defuse, disseminated rash across multiple parts of the body and it’s very visible and evident, that may prompt somebody to go to a medical provider. If it’s more contained to a single body site or a few body sites that can easily be covered up by clothing, then maybe they’re less likely.Monkeypox patients that I’ve spoken with, they often talk about quite a protracted illness with kind of flu-like syndrome with respiratory involvement. They talk about a lot of malaise, achiness. They’re tired. And the lesions themselves often are described as being very painful, irrespective of where they occur on the body.
That’s what we usually hear from patients, that due to these sorts of signs or symptoms, they knew that they were really sick….
Much more (trigger warning: graphic descriptions) at the link.
A handful of monkeypox cases have now been reported in Britain, Portugal, Spain and the United States — raising alarm. The viral disease spreads through close contact and was first found in monkeys.
Here's what scientists know so far https://t.co/QWMI6Ti9r7 👇 1/4
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 19, 2022
https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1527263039229153281
https://twitter.com/JohnRossMD/status/1527045041742614528
debbie
Google tells me they stopped vaccinating for smallpox way back in 1972. That leaves an awful lot of people vulnerable, no?
Anne Laurie
‘@Debbie: Not so many among us Jackals, I’m afraid.
Seriously, it’s *still* a very small number of cases, widely dispersed, of a disease with a low (and probably exaggerated by circumstances) fatality rate.
Also, there’s some discussion that even a prior CHICKENpox infection, or vaccination, provides enough protection against low-level, short-term contacts — and most people too young for a smallpox scar probably got chickenpox and/or a chickenpox shot.
CaseyL
debbie – I think there are stockpiles, and/or the Feds could whip up some vaccine quickly from…somewhere.
Fun fact: My parents decided to get me vaccinated against smallpox somewhere it would not show. (Smallpox vaccines leave large round scars.) So they had it done on my mid-thigh, never dreaming someday short skirts and short shorts would be fashionable. (I wore them anyway.)
And, yes, from that you can tell I was vaccinated a very long time ago. I hear differing estimates of how long immunity lasts, but mine has, at the very least, attenuated.
debbie
‘@CaseyL
I heard earlier on the BBC that they were vaccinating for smallpox somewhere in Africa. Wish I could remember where.
@Ann Laurie
I remember getting a second smallpox vaccine at some point in high school. Scar’s very faded, but I can still find it.
Anne Laurie
‘@Debbie: Probably Nigeria and/or Ghana, which are the ‘probable sources’ of the current (mini) global monkeypox outbreak. Smallpox vaxx is used to ‘ring vaccinate’ people who’ve been exposed to monkeypox carriers, because there’s (not yet) a specific MP vaxx, and the two viruses are close enough cousins that ramping up your immune system against smallpox works *well enough* to at least greatly lower the risk of catching monkeypox.
Ruckus
My smallpox circle is still visible after over 67+ yrs. Not as noticeable but still visible.
Kropacetic
I’m waiting to hear how transmission of this disease is a foundational Constitutional right.
Spanky
How can I tell if it’s monkeypox lesions instead of my usual stigmata?
BillinGlendaleCA
‘@Kropacetic
It’s gawds will.
Marmot
Thank the … stars above? … y’all are so resilient.
As another commenter was saying in a previous thread, getting news and commentary on Twitter, you wade through the bleakest and most depressing slants constantly.
It’s like a Black Mirror social medium or something.
Kropacetic
‘@Spanky
Look for new or emerging skin eruptions, would be my guess. #SeriousAnswersToFacetiousQuestions
Kropacetic
What’s Twitter?
Marmot
Also! It’s like nobody there ever does anything to fix the problems they whinge about. Y’all do.
Just yeah, thanks. Sorry this is off-topic.
Marmot
Kropacetic, you’re cool.
Eyeroller
Chickenpox is a herpesvirus (varicella zoster) and is not related to these poxviruses, which are orthopoxviruses, so I do not see how a chickenpox vaccine would be effective.
Kropacetic
Haha, uh, thanks!
BillinGlendaleCA
‘@Eyeroller
No worries, just take the horse paste, it’ll fix what ails ya. That and tax cuts, tax cuts cure everything.
Scout211
‘@ Kropacetic May 20, 2022 at 8:01 PM
I’m waiting to hear that Biden has failed to keep those monkey pox carriers from all those “shit hole” countries from entering the US and infecting Real Americans with the icky sticky monkey pox. //
Kropacetic
‘@Scout211
I’d wager such a bad hot take already exists. I’d search and post a link, but I don’t want to depress myself when it proves too easy to find.
dexwood
‘@Spanky. Is there a cross nearby? A crown of thorns? If not, worry not.
White & Gold Purgatorian
Those Monkeypox blisters are kinda of scary looking so it’s possible right wingers will overreact to this and actually seek out smallpox vaccines. A lot of MAGAats are very concerned about their physical appearance. IMO that was one of their original objections to masks — hated to “disfigure” such lovely faces.
MaiNaem mobile
The smallpox vaccine would be the old fashioned vaccine not the oogabooga computer chip MRNA one so maybe people will take the vaccine.
Capri
There was a interesting monkey pox issue about a decade ago in Indiana. It entered the country with some Gambian Rats (That are neither from Gambia or rats) that were brought to an animal swap meet for sale. They didn’t show signs, but infected prairie dogs. The board of animal health tracked down all the prairie dogs before they infected people. Luckily, all the folks contacted surrendered their prairie dogs even though there was no law compelling them to do so.