Monkeypox, what we know and why we shouldn’t (re) make the mistake of thinking it’s a “gay disease”

Monkeypox, what we know and why we shouldn’t (re) make the mistake of thinking it’s a “gay disease”

Just as vaccinations are starting, this short article intends to correct on a scientific basis some erroneous information that has unfortunately been disseminated, through the media, even from official sources.

The so-called Smallpox of monkeys is a disease caused by the Monkeypox virus, which is the most important infection with Orthopoxvirusclose relatives of the now eradicated (and totally eradicated from the planet) human smallpox (Variola maior virus).

Despite the kinship, this infection is far from the danger of the disappeared human smallpox, as well as for the enormous medical developments in recent years, especially due to the intrinsic characteristics of the virus.

In fact, there are two clades (different genetic forms) with very different lethalities, one coming from West Africa (with mortality less than 1% of cases) and another characteristic of the Congo basin (with lethality around and above the 10% of cases); it is good to clarify immediately that the virus that is currently circulating, outside the African continent and therefore also in Europe, comes from the first clade which causes extremely low mortality, in the absence of treatment and vaccination.

Another concept that should be clarified immediately is that it is absolutely not a new pathogen, as it was SARS-CoV-2 for Covid-19, but rather a zoonosis that is a disease characteristic of animals, which is attempting for at least fifty years the climb towards our species and which, occasionally, can currently also affect human beings and can then be transmitted from man to man, although in an absolutely inefficient and infrequent way.

Modes of transmission are via the contact with infected material coming from skin lesions or with contaminated surfaces (personal objects, clothes, sheets, etc.), as well as through prolonged and close contact between individuals through small droplets of saliva, called dropletsemitted during breathing.

The data available so far of the ongoing epidemic, would seem to suggest in some cases that the transmission also occurred during intimate intercourse, but this does not demonstrates in an incontrovertible way that it is a sexually transmitted disease nor, even less, does it imply that it may preferentially affect some groups or categories of the population rather than others: a similar mistake was made when we started talking about AIDS, from 1981 onwards, stigmatizing homosexuals as today and in that case also drug addicts, with the result of making the disease grow enormously among heterosexual subjects convinced that the risk did not concern them.

AIDS such as MPXV (Monkeypox virus disease), are diseases related to behaviors (not categories of people!) At risk and the initial involvement of the gay community is to be considered exclusively fortuitous, as the so-called “zero case” that is the first case that gave rise to the Monkeypox epidemic that we are experiencing, was a participant in the “Gay pride” organized in mid-May this year in Maspalomas, in the south of the island Spain from Gran Canaria, which is considered the most important European destination for LGBTQ + tourism: in fact, regardless of the sexual orientation of the participants and from an epidemiological point of view, it was simply a huge gathering of people from many parts of the world who, after being infected, brought the virus to their places of origin spreading the epidemic.

It was therefore a classic example of an “amplification event” for which the same results would have been observed if, instead of a “Gay pride”, it was an event of a completely different nature but with the same number of participants such as, for example, a motorcycle rally or a congress of accountants!

Being a zoonosis, the virus is kept in the environment by animals but, despite the name “monkeypox” or Monkeypox, it seems that various classes of rodents play a very important role both as a reservoir and as a source of contagion; the name Monkeypox is due exclusively to the fact that the virus was isolated for the first time, in 1958, in colonies of monkeys kept in captivity for scientific research, while the first isolation in a human being is much later dating back to 1970.

The disease it causes is usually self-limiting, as it resolves without the need for therapy in a few weeks; despite this, more severe forms can be found in young children, pregnant women and immunocompromised individuals.

Prevention can be based not only on the specific recently approved vaccine, but also on simple precautions largely common to those already adopted for Covid-19 but with the advantage, compared to the latter, that the infection occurs only after the appearance. symptoms: avoid contact prolonged and close with symptomatic subjects, possibly wear FFP2 masks, wash hands frequently and use alcohol-based gels, practice protected sex.

In the event that there has been contagion, the symptomatology generally occurs between 6 and 13 days after contact with an infected and symptomatic person or with his personal effects, but the incubation can in some cases be prolonged up to 21 days.

The most frequent symptom is a rash consisting of pustules and vesicles; during the current epidemic, the presence of lesions on the genitals and in the perianal area was found in the majority of cases.

Along with the rash, the classic symptoms of systemic inflammation can also be found: fever, muscle aches, asthenia, chills, headache and sore throat, as well as sore and swollen lymph nodes. The current epidemic generally presents very mild symptoms disappears spontaneously within 14-21 days, but the rash can be very itchy and the lesions are easily infected. It is very important to be informed about these aspects of the disease, so that you can contact a doctor early if the symptoms described appear.

You see: www.simedet.eu

by dr. Leonardo Borgese (Italian Society of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Medicine)

Monkeypox, what we know and why we shouldn’t (re) make the mistake of thinking it’s a “gay disease”