Monkeypox Cases Double in Three Weeks: "Are We in Time to Stop the Outbreak?" & More Latest News Here – Up Jobs

Monkeypox is advancing rapidly. According to the latest data provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) cases of monkeypox increased by 20 percent in the past week compared to the previous week. “WHO has already been notified of more than 35,000 cases of monkeypox, from 92 countries and territories, with 12 deaths, Almost all cases come from Europe and the Americas, and the population most at risk is men who have sex with men. Nearly 7,500 cases were reported last week, an increase of 20 percent from the previous week,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

This disease has long been present in parts of central and western Africa where people live near the animals that spread the virus. But now it’s gone global and it is spreading in ways never seen before and on an unprecedented scale. Is it too late to put a stop to monkeypox or are we still in time to do it?

If we look at Our World in Data with data from August 18, the latest available, there are already 39,718 cases worldwide. That is 4,000 more than five days ago, on August 12. Moreover, 21 days earlier, on July 26, there were exactly half the cases (19,850 cases). So, In three weeks, cases of monkeypox have doubled worldwide.

We show evolution of monkeypox cases globally every three weeks since the first case:

The WHO says it is a global emergency. So the question is Are we in time to stop monkeypox? Is it too late and we are doomed for another virus to spread throughout the world? What can be done to stop the progression of this disease?

“Monkeypox is not an unstoppable force, we should not treat it as a massive pandemic like covid has been,” says Daniel López Acuña, former director of WHO Health Action. “It is more difficult to get infected and for it to pass from one person to another. close physical contact, such as through infected skin, long face-to-face contact, or a contaminated surface such as sheets or towels. 90% of infections are men between the ages of 20 and 40 who have sex between men of the same sex or have group sex. All of this was not the case with covid, which spreads so easily that it was possibly impossible to contain even in the early days of the pandemic.”

The two viruses do not look alike, and previous outbreaks of monkeypox simply disappeared. However, there is a major problem. Some people have mild symptoms or that can be easily confused with a sexually transmitted disease or chickenpox. That means it can be unintentionally passed on to others.

The former director of the WHO also points out that adequate tracing of close contacts has not been done: “Whether because of taboos or stigmatization, it is very difficult to find these contacts,” explains López-Acuña.. “If, for example, they have had sexual practices in groups that possibly do not know each other or if they know each other, they do not say who they are, tracing becomes much more difficult. If close contacts had been isolated for three weeks or If I had vaccinated those contacts after three or four days, we would not have reached this high rate of cases,” he says. Therefore, López-Acuña believes that not enough is being done to stop the transmission chains of the groups at greatest risk.

Furthermore, he insists that it has taken a long time to activate the vaccination and there has not been enough availability of the doses. About ten years ago in the US there was a major outbreak that was contained precisely by strict isolation, close contact tracing, and early vaccination. And now no such measures have been taken.

The virus is not classified as a sexually transmitted infection. But a study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that 95% of monkeypox infections occurred through sexparticularly sex between men.

So, you have to reduce the risk of getting the infection. López Acuña points out that sexually transmitted infections, although this is not specifically so, cannot be stopped because people continue to have sex with what that entails; close contact and exchange of fluids… and to stop it, risk groups must be made aware, as happened in the early 1980s with HIV.

Therefore, one of the most real options are vaccines. “But it doesn’t have to be a massive vaccine for the whole of society.” Not everyone at risk would need to be vaccinated to stop the outbreak. “Herd immunity” means that once a critical threshold of people is protected, the virus can no longer spread. “This will be much easier to achieve with monkeypox than with other diseases, including covid. Although, in many countries and cases, it is still a taboo and stigma, and discrimination can stop people from looking aid”.

The smallpox vaccine that was used to eradicate that virus is about 85% effective in preventing monkeypox. Mind you, resources are limited, with reserves being kept in case someone weaponizes smallpox, but not to deal with an outbreak of monkeypox that is doubling every three weeks.

Acuña assures that part of the problem has been inadequate actions and the lack of an open, explicit campaign for risk groups. “It seems that the subject is not talked about and the initial messages have not been forceful”, Explain. It is not about stigmatizing certain groups but dealing with them side by side and giving them specific information, without having to point to a specific group, but explaining what are the behaviors that lead to contagion and how to counteract them in order to limit the expansion. “It seems that we are going after the disease.”

The WHO Health Emergencies Programme’s technical lead on monkeypox, Rosamund Lewis, says that it is “possible” to end the outbreak, but warns that “we do not have a crystal ball” and it is not clear if the organization will be able to “support countries and communities enough, enough to stop this outbreak”.

Rosamund Lewis has also emphasized that it is important to control the progress of the development of the pathogen, since it is a virus that “the more it is transmitted, the more it evolves. We must be careful,” she stated. Furthermore, she added that the vaccine against this disease “is not a panacea” and that “it will not solve everything”. Lewis has stressed that there is no 100% prevention with injection. “We see new cases that show us that the solution is not only the vaccine. We have to wait until the maximum immune response occurs, but we do not know when the definitive effect will be,” he added.

López Acuña says that if the exposed measures are not taken, there will continue to be a high number of infections and it will continue to spread, which will lead to this virus becoming endemic in countries where it was no longer endemic. It is not something that is going to be controlled with border closures or mass vaccination or isolation from society. As was the case with covid, that is why control strategies must be focused and aimed at the population most at risk.

In this sense, the director of the WHO has confirmed that almost all cases “come from Europe and the Americas”, and the population most at risk is that of men who have sex with men. “This underscores the importance of all countries designing and delivering tailored services and information to these communities that protect health, human rights and dignity,” Tedros warns.

For this reason, it has urged the States to stop the transmission “using effective tools,” including improved disease surveillance, contact tracingrisk communication adapted to populations and risk reduction measures.