[Animals] Identify the animals that transmit monkeypox

[#Wittels-]

Prairie dogs, the Gambian rat, and the jungle squirrel are some of the animals that can transmit smallpox in its western variant.

After the 30 confirmed cases of monkeypox, Diario AS has contacted the expert Patricia Guillem, Professor of Epidemiology at the European University of Valencia, who explains to us how the zoonosis has been produced, and how the variant is transmits and is jumping borders.

“When we talk about communicable diseases, some are emerging, which are diseases that appear again and remain, such as the coronavirus, or we have the antecedent of HIV, which appeared in 1980, and where AIDS exists today and has remained to live with us, but no longer as an epidemic, but AIDS is a pandemic too, it is present in different parts of the world”, he tells us.

"If we talk about re-emerging diseases, they are those that at some point in history may appear, are cyclical, and may appear for different reasons, such as tuberculosis or the monkeypox virus in this case."

Cases in international travelers

 

"Smallpox as such was eradicated many years ago, but this variant called 'monkey pox', identified in apes, has lived endemicly in some areas of Africa, DR Congo, Gambia, Nigeria... If we go to tropical countries , dengue, malaria, malaria, are diseases that we do not have in Spain, and we can identify some cases in travelers who return with fever and debut with malaria. We do not have this disease in a generalized way, but we may have an imported case”.

The example of mad cow disease
“There may be specific epidemic outbreaks, and in this case there has been a jump across borders and continents, so there has been some import due to international travel. The routes of transmission are varied, being an endemic disease and whose reservoirs are small mammals, prairie dogs, the Gambian rat, and the jungle forest squirrel... This disease is endemic and has caused zoonosis, so it can also jump the evolutionary barrier, like when mad cows, which, a priori, only affected sheep, cows, and there were cases in humans as well”.

 

“There are many diseases that are born in animals and jump to humans. Now we are talking about an endemic disease that constitutes a zoonosis, because contagion has been demonstrated, and there are variants of the monkeypox disease itself, the western variant being the more benign than the original from central Africa."

 

Prairie squirrels can transmit this variant of smallpox.

"What needs to be found out is the clinical evolution of the disease, right now it is benign, with mild symptoms, it does not have major complications, but we can see statistically from the reported cases that the fatality rate is quite variable, from 1 to 1 11%, but you have to look at the data and what kind of people were affected, because the most serious consequences for health occur in children the younger they are".

How is it spread?
"It is spread by close contact, rubbing, exchange of fluids (sweat, blood, saliva, semen, urine...), droplets can also be a transmission route; studies have been carried out but they would be very large droplets and with very close contact , contagion would be more difficult than COVID or tuberculosis. This transmission route is not contemplated at the moment. Another way of becoming infected is through exudates from skin lesions "

"The symptoms begin with fever, swollen glands, headache, muscle weakness, lack of desire for everything, and then the lesions appear, first very few and then very profuse, and those lesions on the skin, in the mouth, in the eyelids, hands, feet, genitals... appear like herpes.

 

international alert
"There is a greater alert from the surveillance systems of all countries, we have more scientific evidence, and in the face of any abnormal disease, we put the focus. With the opening of trips, that we seek more trips in contact with nature, all of this can favoring contagion at this time and not at another time of the year. There is also a commercialization of this type of animal. Searching for case zero can be complex but there is a clear path, it is a zoonosis. The heat may be emerging, since it accelerates the fact that the vesicles burst more easily.

Does it affect men more than women?
"You have to investigate if there is a greater predisposition towards men than women, you should study more. You have to analyze the cases in case it could have been a coincidence, you have to analyze more, go to countries with a higher incidence to see the pattern."

 

Link: https://as.com/diarioas/2022/05/22/actualidad/1653203900_500392.html