Monkeypox has raised alarm globally after an unprecedented rise this year in countries where the virus was not previously reported. With a large number of reported cases among gay men, concerns about discrimination have also been raised. There have even been calls to change the name of the disease.
Monkeypox disease, according to the World Health Organization, “is transmitted to humans through close contact with an infected person or animal, or with material contaminated with the virus.” Symptoms, which include fever, rash and swollen lymph nodes, usually last two to four weeks.
Although the virus has been known since 1958, while the first case in humans appeared in 1970, a study published in the British Medical Journal last week, however, pointed to the researchers’ observations, suggesting a “new clinical course of the disease”.
The study was conducted among 197 participants, and 196 of them were gay men or who had sex with men.
Rectal pain and penile edema (painless, nontender swelling of the penis) were among the new clinical presentations identified.
“A variable temporal association between mucocutaneous and systemic features was observed, suggesting a new clinical course of the disease. New clinical presentations of monkeypox infection were identified, including rectal pain and penile edema. These presentations should be included in public health messages to aid early diagnosis and reduce transmission,” the researchers said in their conclusion.
Monkeypox is caused by an orthopoxvirus, which rarely causes disease in humans, the journal says, adding that the first reports of infected humans were recorded in 1970, when a smallpox-like disease was investigated in areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. to be free from smallpox.
The WHO declared a global public health emergency last week. However, experts constantly insist that there is no need to panic.
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