The latest outbreak of monkeypox, a virus officially renamed MBOX Short for the English name – Monkeypoxvirus -, the international community has been put on alert once again. After the World Health Organization declared on Friday, August 16, a Public Health Emergency of International Concern – the program that is launched when a disease is considered to exceed the usual thresholds and could lead to the concern of the world population -, the various governments have set about trying to contain the nerves of their citizens and prevent the virus, initially concentrated in the Republic of Congo, from spreading to Europe. In fact, on this very Wednesday, the Minister of Health, Mónica García, agreed with the various autonomous communities to “strengthen” the detection mechanisms MBOXHowever, according to the ministry’s own data this week, from August 8 to 21, 7 new cases of monkeypox were detected across the state – a number that adds to the 261 cases recorded throughout the year.
Although scientific data show that the cases of infection with the virus in the Spanish state are minimal, the flood of information about it has added to the living memory of the Covid pandemic that paralyzed the world in 2020 – some of whose consequences are still lingering – and has put the population back on alert. “It is a logical reaction. We always say that epidemics go through two phases: the panic cycle, then the forgetting cycle,” says the doctor in a conversation with El Mon Anthony Trillaepidemiologist, director of clinical quality and safety at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona and former advisor to the Spanish government during the coronavirus. The expert considers that this type of post-pandemic psychosis – since it arises in a certain way due to the historical memory of Covid – is “understandable”, but it does not correspond to reality. In this sense, the doctor Israel Molinain charge of tropical medicine and the international health unit in Val d’Hebron, agrees. In Western countries, the effects are more than just “social fear” of infection.The volume of cases and detection mechanisms are not comparable to those in Africa.
Dr. Trilla points out that this is not the first time that “historical memory” has put the population on alert, but not in the same way as it did after the Covid pandemic. For example, the expert points out that after the Great Influenza of 1918, because of the harsh experience of that time – which coincided with the end of World War I – the population tended not to talk about it much. To try to forget it. But decades later, with the emergence of new epidemics such as the 2016 Ebola outbreak that wreaked havoc on the African continent, the memory of the Great Influenza has resurfaced, albeit more subdued because “very few people were able to live through it.” However, Covid has revived historical memory, which has pushed the population back into the “panic cycle” of epidemics – even though the current situation MBOX It is not yet a pandemic. Experts explain that monkeypox “has no similarities to the coronavirus,” which is why it is very difficult to recreate a situation like the one in 2020.
Two different pandemic scenarios
Experts agree, as Moncloa and the Ministry of Health, already in the hands of the new Minister Olga Bani, have done on several occasions, to send a message of reassurance to the population, since the “epidemiological scenarios” that are emerging in Catalonia – and the Spanish State as a whole – and the Republic of Congo are very different: “It is essential that citizens understand that these are two completely different epidemiological scenarios. “We do not have the same amount of contagion as in Africa and we have good surveillance mechanisms,” says Dr. Molina, explaining that “there is a controlled risk.” This means that, a priori, we should not reproduce the situation we saw with the Covid pandemic. In this vein, and paraphrasing one of the principles of epidemiology, Dr. Trilla insists: “Cale is busy” But the problem lies in sending resources to the countries that need them most. “Don’t worry“An infection anywhere in the world is likely to be an infection everywhere in the world,” he argues.
Experts also point out that the “epidemiological scenarios” differ in terms of the genetic makeup of the virus. While the viral variant that spread across Europe in 2022 – which has never completely disappeared – was transmitted through sexual intercourse, especially among the homosexual population who maintained relationships with several people at the same time without protection, the viral variant currently detected in Africa – which has not seen many cases in Europe, with some isolated cases in Sweden – is also transmitted through simple direct contact, which is why many cases have been detected among boys and girls. However, according to data from the latest Ministry report, it is not known that any of the cases detected in Spain this year 2024 correspond to the new strain that emerged in central Africa. In other words, the epidemiological scenario to be dealt with has different rules of the game.
Smallpox, the disease that has been eradicated
Monkeypox dates back to 1958, when a team of researchers first discovered an outbreak of a previously unknown virus in a colony of captive research monkeys in Denmark. At the time, because of the organism in which they discovered the virus, the researchers named it monkeypox virusThe first case in humans was not discovered until 1970 in the Republic of the Congo. After the first outbreak, and considering that the symptoms presented by the disease had many similarities to smallpox – a disease that was completely eradicated in 1980 – although it was milder, researchers began calling it “monkeypox”. However, given that the cases originated in Africa, the scientific community decided that it was better to change the name to MBOX To avoid “stigmatizing” the groups that suffered from it, because “monkey” is a term often used as a racial insult.
Since then and until 2024, according to data from the Ministry of Health, the virus has spread to more than a hundred countries on five continents. Historically, several outbreaks of the disease have been recorded, such as the one that spread to the United States due to the importation of Gambian rats – nocturnal rats originally from Africa, mainly from the Republic of the Congo – as pets. However, health authorities have managed to control this virus to prevent it from wreaking havoc among the population.
Despite these isolated cases, a large-scale outbreak occurred worldwide in 2022 – more than 100,000 people in 116 countries were infected – which is why the World Health Organization also declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. At the time, the Epidemiological Surveillance Network of Catalonia (XVEC) asked health centers to urgently report possible cases of the disease. The mechanisms of transmission between humans that were discovered during the major outbreak two years ago are through direct or indirect contact with live or dead infected mammals, especially rodents or primates from endemic areas, or through the consumption of contaminated food, but also through direct contact with the skin of lesions or body fluids such as semen, saliva or pus from an infected person, or contaminated objects such as clothing, bedding or towels. Now, with the latest outbreak, researchers have discovered new forms of transmission in the Central African variant, but they insist that there is still a “lack of information” to determine whether this viral variant has crossed borders and reached European territory.
Call for calm and international solidarity
Taking into account the information that researchers have about the outbreak of the disease in 2022 and the vaccination developed at that time to deal with it – which the Spanish government has made clear that it still has stocks – experts insist that it is necessary to “keep calm”. “Since monkeypox can pose a “threat” to part of the population, but it does not constitute a generalized “risk”: “There may be cases, but we have the tools to fight them. In fact, we have many more vaccines than registered cases,” insists Dr. Molina. Not only does the Spanish government have good reserves of this vaccine, but at the beginning of August the European Union issued a purchase order for more than 175,000 units to prepare its member states against the possible cases that may arrive, a figure that will exceed 200,000 with the donation of more than 40,000 doses by the pharmaceutical company that produces it. In any case, experts consider that, without stopping to think about the well-being of the Catalan, Spanish and European populations, world governments must start “sending aid” to countries “that need it most” because they are more exposed to the virus, as is the case in African regions, and have fewer resources to fight it: “We can’t do like Covid and try to win the battle one by one.”.
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