What is the history of monkeypox?
Monkeypox is a disease caused by a virus that started spreading from animals to humans.
Humans first learnt about monkeypox when a bunch of research monkeys in a laboratory got infected with it in 1958. That’s why they named it monkeypox.
The first known case of a human with monkeypox happened in 1970 when a nine-year-old boy from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR) got infected with it. Monkeypox causes fever, headaches and tiredness. It also causes painful rashes on the skin.
How has monkeypox been spreading?
Usually, monkeypox cases show up only in certain parts of Africa. So far, any infection outside Africa was caused by people who had travelled to Africa or come in contact with infected African animals.
In 2022, hundreds of monkeypox cases started popping up across the world without any explanation. Most people infected with the monkeypox virus hadn't had any recent history of travel to Africa or African animals.
So…why is this happening?
No one knows why, but scientists have a guess.
Many years ago, a deadly disease named smallpox used to cause the deaths of many people. After many years of vaccinations, smallpox finally went extinct. Monkeypox is a less scary cousin of smallpox.
Since monkeypox is similar to smallpox, the smallpox vaccine accidentally protected us against the monkeypox virus too. Now that humans have stopped receiving the smallpox vaccine, scientists think monkeypox is coming back.
Does monkeypox spread as easily as COVID?
Unlike COVID, monkeypox does not spread through the air. It requires close physical contact with the bodily fluids, like saliva, of a sick person. So it’s far more difficult for the virus to spread and infect people than it is for the COVID virus.
The monkeypox spreading across the globe rarely leads to anyone dying, so that’s a relief!
The best part - the monkeypox vaccine already exists in the form of the smallpox vaccine. We won’t have to wait for a new vaccine to be developed, as we had to with COVID.
So go ahead and enjoy your summer vacations without worrying about another pandemic.
