<h5>What is the history of monkeypox?</h5>  <p>Monkeypox is a disease caused by a virus that started spreading from animals to humans (sounds familiar, eh). Despite the name of the disease, the monkeypox virus did not jump from monkeys to humans. Monkeys are not even the main carriers of the disease, rodents are.</p>
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It’s called monkeypox because the first known case of the virus happened among research monkeys in 1958. The first human case of monkeypox happened in 1970 when a nine-year-old boy from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR) was diagnosed with it.
</p> <h5>How has monkeypox spread since then?</h5>  <p>Since then, most of the world’s monkeypox cases have been restricted to DCR, with a few infections being reported in other central and western African countries each year.</p>
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Monkeypox infections anywhere outside Africa have been rare and have mostly been caused by international travel from Africa or contact with animals imported from Africa. For example, the first monkeypox case in the USA happened in 2003, from a shipment of animals imported from Ghana.
</p> <h5>What changed in 2022 - why the sudden spread?</h5>  <p>As of 26th May 2022, there have been two hundred and fifty-seven confirmed and many more suspected cases of monkeypox across twenty-three countries. These include the USA, UK, Australia, UAE, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Israel, etc. </p>
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The current outbreak of monkeypox is the largest the world has ever seen. What’s even more puzzling is that most of the people infected have no history of travel or contact with animals.
</p> <h5>So…why is this happening?</h5>  <p>Much like us, doctors and scientists are also confused. Some experts think that the virus has changed in some way that makes it easy to infect. </p>
<p></p>
<p>The second theory is about smallpox, a deadly disease that’s now extinct. Monkeypox is a less scary cousin of smallpox. Smallpox was eradicated in 1980, thanks to vaccinations. The smallpox vaccine is effective against the monkeypox virus. As long as people were getting vaccinated against smallpox, protection from monkeypox came as a bonus.</p>
<p>Now that it’s been decades since anyone’s received a smallpox vaccine, monkeypox is slowly making its way back among the world’s population. 
</p> <h5>What are the symptoms of monkeypox?</h5>  <p>The first symptoms of monkeypox resemble those of the flu - fever, headache, tiredness and shortness of breath. Then comes the pox part of monkeypox - lesions on the skin across the body that turn into blisters (yeah, it’s not pretty!).</p>
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People who get monkeypox that’s spreading across the globe rarely die from it, so that’s a relief.
</p> <h5>Last question…does monkeypox spread as easily as COVID?</h5>  <p>Monkeypox spreads nowhere near as easily as COVID (phew!). While COVID spreads through the air, monkeypox requires contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids like saliva. This means that someone with monkeypox can infect far fewer people than someone with COVID can.
In case the virus does begin to spread faster, countries will make the smallpox vaccine available. We won’t have to wait for a new vaccine to be developed, as we had to with COVID.
So all in all, there’s no reason to panic or fear another pandemic. You’re all set to make the most of your summer holidays.
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Now that COVID is old news, another strange disease is making its way around the world. Let’s find out how it spreads and dangerous it is.


Monkeypox Cases on the Rise Globally

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Monkeypox Cases on the Rise Globally

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