Monkeypox is almost nothing like Covid-19
Among the many differences — fortunately, for a world weary of the pandemic — is that monkeypox is far less transmissible.
Monkeypox is not new. Several thousand cases are reported each year, almost entirely in Africa, though some of the newly reported cases in Europe have no known link to Africa. Alas, social media already is rife with monkeypox misinformation, perhaps unsurprisingly for a disease with a name that sounds like something out of a bad disaster movie.
To cut through the clutter, we spoke to Brian DeHaven, an associate professor of biology at La Salle University, and Stuart Isaacs, under whom DeHaven did a Ph.D. on pox viruses at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
WHAT CAUSES MONKEYPOX ?
Like Covid, monkeypox is caused
by a virus. But the two microbes are not remotely related. Coronaviruses contain single strands of genetic material called RNA. The monkeypox virus carries its genetic code in DNA, which is double-stranded. The monkeypox virus is millions of times larger than the one that causes Covid, and it produces proteins that disrupt the defences in the human immune system.
“They look kind of like bricks,” DeHaven said. “They are not subtle.”
HOW DOES MONKEYPOX SPREAD?
Monkeypox is so named because it was discovered in colonies of monkeys used for research in 1958. But it is unlikely that monkeys were the original source, said Isaacs, a virologist and associate professor at Penn. The virus also is carried by rodents.
People can spread it to one another through contact with bodily fluids, lesions on the skin, or mucosal surfaces such as in the mouth or throat, the World Health Organization says. In Britain, health authorities say cases have predominantly occurred in men who have sex with men. Sex is not generally considered to be a route of transmission but is theoretically possible, Isaacs sa The monkeypo spread by cou ly through lar to the ground not the lighte cles that rem utes. As a resu less readily be Covid. Each p tends to pass people, on aver