monkeypox

The monkeypox virus is related to the smallpox virus but was thought to be much less contagious.  It is a virus found in monkeys in the 1950s and then found in humans in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1970s.  It causes flu-like symptoms and skin rashes or lesions.

The fact that it is popping up around the world may mean that the virus is changing its behaviour. There are two main strains of the virus, the Congo strain and the West African strain.  The latter causes death in about 1% of cases and the former in about 10% of cases, so it is fortunate that it is the West African strain that is on the move.  So far no deaths have been recorded but it is worrying that there is no consensus on how the virus is being transmitted.  Some cases are clearly travel-related but others are not.  It is possible that the virus has mutated to be more easily transmissible and that some people who are carriers are asymptomatic, but none of this has been proved. At the moment we have two confirmed cases in Australia, both returning travellers.

It is called monkeypox because the virus was identified in 1958 in lab monkeys in Denmark but its natural host is a rodent. There is some resistance to the name as having negative connotations, particularly in the West, and the WHO has been asked to rename it. By November 2022 they came up with mpox.