Q & A: What you need to know about monkeypox

Monkeypox burst into the headlines this month after cases were diagnosed in Africa, Europe, North America and Australia.In an interview,Anne Rimoin, the Gordon-Levin Professor of Infectious Diseases and Public Health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, offered insights about the disease, which she has studied for two decades. Rimoin has been director of theUCLA Center for Global and Immigrant Health and is the founder of the UCLA –DRC Health Research and Training Program in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.In simplest terms, what is monkeypox?Monkeypox is a viral zoonosis, a virus that is transmitted from animals to humans. It ’s endemic in parts of Central and West Africa. Monkeypox is from the same family as smallpox but causes less severe disease.It was discovered in the late 1940s, when outbreaks of a pox-like illness occurred in monkey colonies that were being used for research in Denmark — hence the name monkeypox. But the name is a misnomer. Monkeys can be infected by the virus, but it’s thought to be more commonly spread by small rodents and squirrels that are native to the forests of Africa.There are two genetically distinct types, or clades, of the monkeypox virus. The Central African, or Congo Basin, clade and the West African clade. The Central African clade is thought to spread more easily and causes more severe disease.How do people get monkeypox?Transmission can occur when a person comes into contact with the virus from an animal, human or...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news