now authorities in the u.s state of
massachusetts have recorded their first
case of the rare monkey pox virus
several european countries have reported
cases most recently in france u.s
doctors are now investigating whether
the massachusetts case is related to the
european outbreaks
monkeypox is a rare viral infection
usually found in small mammals in west
and central africa
the spread of the virus is usually
caused by people traveling to those
areas
that's why doctors at the massachusetts
general hospital in the u.s were
initially surprised to be confronted
with the disease in a patient
during the course of their admission
they were identified as a possible
monkey pop suspect and this was really
unusual because the patient had no
travel history
no exposure to animals that would be
known to be reservoirs however the team
thinking about the patient and hearing
just over the weekend about some of the
cases in the united kingdom thought more
broadly about the patient's diagnosis
doctors are now working to establish
whether the infection is connected to
small outbreaks currently being seen in
europe
italy and sweden have become the latest
countries to confirm cases following
britain portugal and spain
authorities say they're monitoring the
outbreak closely
it's not likely that it will generate a
significant transmission but we cannot
rule it out so we have to be very
careful
monkey pox is similar to human smallpox
though milder
most people recover from it in a few
weeks
symptoms include fever and headache
feeling tired and swollen glands
the virus is usually transferred through
close bodily contact or bodily fluids
while the world health organization says
the general public should be aware of
unusual skin rashes
experts stress there is no need for
alarm
it can then spread from person to person
but it's not very efficient
at transmitting and so what we normally
see is maybe one or two people get
infected from that case and then it dies
out because it's not very infectious
within a human
population
while authorities stress that the risk
to the general public is low they're
urging any suspected cases to
self-isolate immediately
and for more i'm now joined by simon
clark associate professor in cellular
microbiology from the university of
reading in the uk welcome to dw
now uh we heard there in that report the
symptoms of monkey pox are quite mild in
humans so why now are health officials
focusing their attention on this spread
well although symptoms are generally
quite mild
and lethality is low it's probably about
one percent this is the version of the
virus that we have in the uk it's
probably about one cent
in the context of an african um
uh healthcare system in a european
healthcare system you would expect it i
think to be even lower but you have to
remember that this causes um quite
severe lesions which can scar can stay
with people for life and also it's more
likely to be lethal in younger people
so
that there is a need to control this and
to get on top of it quickly and prevent
it from spreading
now how can monkey pox be treated
uh well some of the treatments that we
have for smallpox which haven't been
used in decades because of course
smallpox is uh
extinct um
can be wheeled out we're not quite sure
exactly how effective these will be
but there does appear to be some
efficacy with them so you can use the
smallpox vaccine to ring fence immunity
round outbreaks and there will be uh
attempts to use antibodies against
smallpox
against monkey pox as well
okay now this um tropical disease is
normally found in west and central
africa now we're seeing it here in
colder climates in the u.s in europe do
we have any uh knowledge about why we're
seeing it here
well it's the sort of thing that we
would periodically see anyway i suspect
that the the the uh the relatively high
number of uh outbreaks
in northern climes it's probably got
something to do with increased travel
people haven't been able to travel
to um
from from europe to africa for quite a
while now um and of course over the past
few months that will have
changed and people will start moving
around the world again and we'll start
to see these outbreaks um of course we
have to remember that older people have
some residual immunity it's believed
from smallpox vaccine somebody my age uh
won't
so of course we're probably a bit more
susceptible to uh to monkey pox than the
older population
fascinating stuff simon clark from the
university of reading thank you