While the World Health Organization (WHO) meets urgently this Thursday, an update on monkey pox which has made more than 14,500 cases recorded in 70 countries.
- Monkey pox continues to spread in France and around the world.
- Discovered and present in Africa, this virus is now recorded in France without any notion of travel or contact with travelers from Africa.
Is monkeypox a global public health emergency, the highest level of alert? This is what will be decreed or not by the emergency committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) which meets today to deal with the outbreak of the virus.
Epicenter Europe
Tuesday July 19, 2022, 1,453 confirmed cases were detected in France. The vast majority are men, but six women and two children are also affected. Adult cases range in age from 18 to 84 (median age: 36). Europe remains by far the epicenter of the current wave, with 8,238 cases in 35 countries, according to figures from the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CEDC), dated July 12.
“Regardless of the Committee’s recommendation, WHO will continue to do its utmost to stop monkeypox and save lives.“, declared Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the UN agency, at a press conference on Wednesday. He had previously urged member countries to take adequate measures to limit contamination: “I stress again that we must work to stop transmission and advise governments to put in place contact tracing to monitor and contain the virus and provide assistance to people in isolation.
Pustular disease
Regarding the symptoms, the monkeypox virus causes a pustular disease, like all viruses of the orthopoxvirus genus. The disease is first manifested by high fever, great fatigue, headaches and body aches. The vast majority of cases also present with pronounced swelling of the lymph nodes in certain places (under the jaw, in the neck and in the groin). After two days, the disease enters its “eruptive” and contagious phase, with the appearance of lesions on the skin in the form of pimples.
According to the Regional Health Agency (ARS), the infection heals spontaneously. But serious complications or forms can appear in some people and can cause a major eruption that can sometimes generate superinfections or generalized infections, digestive or ENT problems, eye damage, neurological complications or even serious forms in the lungs. Severe cases occur more frequently in children, pregnant women, and immunocompromised people. Its mortality rate is low since it is less than 10% among the cases observed around the world.
Preventive vaccination
According to the Regional Health Agency monkeypox is not known as a sexually transmitted disease but sexual contact with a person carrying the virus is conducive to the transmission of the virus. This is why it is important to abstain from sexual contact, and more generally from prolonged skin contact, when you have signs of monkeypox, indicates the ARS.
Following the opinion of the High Authority for Health of July 8, 2022, preventive vaccination may be offered to the groups of people most exposed to the virus: men who have sex with men and trans people with multiple partners, people who prostitute themselves and people working in places of sexual consumption.
