It’s no more news that the United States public healthcare experts have declared the monkeypox virus a public health emergency. This recent declaration means everybody needs to do what they can to either avoid the virus or prevent it from further spreading. Getting sufficient information on the causes, spread, and symptoms of the monkeypox virus is the first step to avoiding this zoonotic disease.
In the rest of this post, you’ll discover everything about this pox virus, including its causes, prevention, symptoms, and complications.
Table of Contents
History of monkeypox
To many people, the monkeypox virus is a new member of the smallpox family. While this virus just recently became a pandemic, it’s worth knowing that it has been around for many decades. To be precise, the first known case of the monkeypox virus was discovered in 1958. This virus surfaced after an orthopoxvirus occurred in a colony of monkeys, which was used for research purposes.
In 1970, the first known human monkeypox was discovered in a 9-month-old boy, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since the first known human case, a lot of other African countries have also reported one or more cases of this pox virus.
Today, the monkeypox rash virus doesn’t only affect African countries. A lot of countries across the world, including the United States, have reported many cases in the past months. According to the latest information, the total known cases of the monkeypox virus in the US and the world are 26,000+ and 342,586, respectively.
Monkeypox rash virus: causes
As you already know, the monkey poxvirus belongs to the smallpox family, known as Orthopoxvirus. For now, the exact cause of this pox virus is still unclear but according to experts, different factors can cause it.
The key factor that causes monkeypox, according to health experts, is rodents. The Gambian rats, African rope squirrels, dormice, and striped mice are a few rodents that cause this virus.
Modes of transmission of monkeypox
The transmission of monkeypox occurs in two different modes; human-to-human and animal-to-human.
1. Animal-to-human (Zoonotic)
The animal-to-human monkeypox transmission, also called zoonotic transmission, mostly results from direct contact with the bodily fluids, mucosal lesions, or blood of the infected animals. Another possible risk factor of the monkeypox rash virus involves eating inadequately cooked rodents and other animals.
2.Human-to-human
The spread of monkeypox rash can also occur from human to human. This will mostly happen if you go in close contact with an infected person. That’s not all; you are also at risk of catching this pox virus if you end up coming in contact with the skin lesions and respiratory secretions of someone who has the virus. You might also contract this virus if you come in close contact with the contaminated objects of the infected person.
Signs of monkeypox
There are many warning symptoms of the monkeypox virus that one can get to ascertain it’s time to go for a test. The most common one is rash, which often comes in the form of blisters or pimples. Other signs of monkeypox include headache, chills, lymphadenopathy, myalgia, back pains, muscle aches, fever, sore throat, and cough.
There are two major stages for monkeypox symptoms:
Invasion stage
The invasion period, which often lasts between 0 to 5 days, is the first stage of the monkeypox symptom. For this stage, you might experience the following symptoms:
- Fever
- Intense headache
- Lymphadenopathy – this involves the swelling of the lymph nodes
- Back pain
- Myalgia or muscle aches
- Fatigue
Skin eruption
The skin eruption period is the stage where rashes start to surface. This usually happens 3 days after the monkeypox fever symptom. The evolution of the rash happens sequentially in the following order:
- Macules – the monkeypox symptom rash comes with lesions with a flat base.
- Papules
- Vesicles – the lesions start having clear pulse
- Pustules – the lesions starts havibg yellowish fluid.
- Crusts – this is the last stage, in which the monkeypox symptom rash becomes very dry and starts falling off.
