Two days after the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global emergency, the first case outside of the African continent: the Swedish Ministry of Health reports on a citizen of the country who was infected with the new deadly strain of the virus. Experts estimate that further reports of infection cases of tourists who stayed in Africa and returned to their countries of origin are expected.
The man became infected while staying in a part of Africa where there was a large outbreak of the disease. This is a new strain that causes severe morbidity and has already led to dozens of deaths in Africa. The World Health Organization issued its warning of a global emergency after an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo spread to neighboring countries. According to the local Ministry of Health, the infected man received instructions in accordance with the accepted recommendations.
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There are currently two main strains of the smallpox virus: the milder caused the global outbreak in 2022 in Europe, Australia, the US and many countries and spread mainly through anal sexual contact between men and men. The more violent strain spreads as mentioned in Africa, and it passes through any close contact of skin to skin, in sexual relations, and through fragments of saliva in the speech or breath of a sick person.
Meanwhile, there is no evidence of infection with the deadly African strain in Israel, and worldwide efforts are being made to deliver doses of one of the three existing vaccines against the virus to residents. However, according to estimates, the lack of ingredients will lead to a delay of months in vaccinating the population. In Israel there is no report of the arrival of the deadly strain, and the morbidity rate during the last months has remained at a low level.
Monkeypox is so called because it was first identified in laboratory monkeys in 1958. It is close to another well-known disease – smallpox, a serious and fatal disease that was eradicated from the world in 1980. Unlike smallpox, the “classic” monkeypox that appears in the Western world and in Israel is less contagious, causing milder symptoms and less lethal.
The disease usually lasts two weeks to a month and the symptoms may appear in the range of five days to 21 days after the infection. The symptoms usually start with a combination of fever, headache, muscle pain, back pain, chills, fatigue, and swollen lymph nodes. The latter symptom allows doctors to differentiate between monkeypox and smallpox or chickenpox.
After one to three days of the fever, a rash appears that starts to spread from the face down to the whole body. The number of lesions ranges from a few to thousands of lesions in various forms, similar to the chicken pox lesions. There is no specific medicine against the disease, and the way to protect yourself is through the vaccine given in two doses, one month apart from each other.