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Monday, June 16, 2003The rash looks like this. Other symptoms include a , fever, swollen lymph nodes (aka “glands”), fever, muscle aches, headache, sorethroat, and/or cough. And, of course, exposure to a prairie dog or other little mammal from that Texas distributor, but not exposure to monkeys as simian lovers are quick to point out: Monkey owners say monkeypox ought to be called "ratpox." The virus was discovered in laboratory monkeys in 1958 in Africa. But scientists say the disease-causing virus' natural host may be the African squirrel and that it is typically transmitted by rodents. It can be transmitted from person to person, as happened in the Congo, but we aren’t very good hosts so it burns itself out quickly: After smallpox eradication, surveillance for human monkeypox from 1981 to 1986 in the DRC identified 338 cases (67% confirmed by virus culture). The case-fatality rate was 9.8% for persons not vaccinated with vaccinia (smallpox) vaccine, which was about 85% efficacious in preventing human monkeypox. The secondary attack rate in unvaccinated household members was 9.3%, and 28% of case-patients reported an exposure to another case-patient during the incubation period. Transmission chains beyond secondary were rare. A mathematical model to assess the potential for monkeypox to spread in susceptible populations after cessation of vaccinia vaccination indicated that person-to-person transmission would not sustain monkeypox in humans without repeated reintroduction of the virus from the wild. And the latest news says that so far no human-to-human transmission has occurred here. Not yet a public health problem on the scale of SARS. Just stay away from those little rodents. (See the CDC Monkeypox Homepage for more.) posted by Sydney on 6/16/2003 09:43:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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