QWho wants the death of humanity? The pandemic due to Sars-CoV-2 has not yet finished decimating the world population that a new virus is talking about in the United States, Canada, England, Spain, Portugal and several other countries Europeans. A suspicious case has even just been detected in Île-de-France. You got it, we are talking about the monkey pox virus! Do not react to the quarter turn. For the moment, the people affected are still less than a hundred in the West. These present the symptoms of the flu, fever, headaches, swollen glands, back and muscle pain, exhaustion, their body is covered with pustules, and then they recover without treatment, because the disease is benign. For the moment, no death, this smallpox is not deemed fatal for humans, except rare cases of superinfection.
Ready-to-use screening tests
Jessica Vanhomwegen, member of the Biological Emergency Response Unit (CIBU) at the Institut Pasteur confirms: “If the simultaneous broadcast in several European countries has indeed surprised us, there is nothing to worry about. This virus originating in Africa has been one of our priority targets for several years. We already have ready-to-use screening tests and we are ready to sequence this virus. »
It was in 1958 that this virus, close to that of human smallpox, was for the first time identified in macaques from a pet shop in Copenhagen. Subsequently, several animal epidemics were identified, including one in chimpanzees at the Institut Pasteur. The first identified human infection dates back to 1970. It involved a child from the Central African Republic. Currently, there are in particular about twenty patients in Central Africa and a thousand in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “The majority of patients were contaminated by an animal, a rodent, a monkey during a bite or contact with a wound. Remote transmission such as that of Sars-CoV-2 does not occur”, notes Steve Ahuka, head of the virology department at the National Institute for Biomedical Research of the Democratic Republic of Congo and attached to the translational research unit on HIV and emerging diseases (IRD-Inserm). “The spread can also take place from one person to another, but always on the condition of contact. When exchanging bodily fluids or sharing clothes or a bed. »
“In fact, explains Jessica Vanhonwegen, there are two clades (two families, Ed) of the monkeypox virus. One is prevalent in West Africa and causes milder symptoms with an estimated case fatality rate of 1%. This is the one present in Europe. The other clade, causing more marked symptoms, is present in central Africa. Its fatality rate can reach 11%. »
No specific vaccine
All this does not explain why this smallpox was found simultaneously in several European countries. Epidemiologists still do not have an answer. All they observe is that many of the sufferers are men who have admitted to having sex with other men. “However, the studies carried out in my country do not show a higher contamination among homosexuals”, remarks Steve Ahuka. Although there is no specific vaccine, the human smallpox vaccine is nevertheless 85% effective. But then, in 1980, the WHO declared smallpox eradicated from the face of the earth, which led to a drop in vaccination. As a result, the monkeypox virus has free rein to spread, in Africa as in Europe. Subsidiary question: could a mutation explain the renewed activity of the virus between men? “Unlikely, replies Professor Ahuka, the monkeypox virus is a DNA virus which mutates much less than RNA viruses, such as Sars-CoV-2. »