It's starting to look like superspreader events propelled monkeypox around the world. But the outbreaks are still an alarm bell.
Scientists have monitored monkeypox for decades out of concern that it could come to fill the niche left by the now eradicated much deadlier, more transmissible cousin, smallpox. And indeed, rates of monkeypox have crept up over theCertainly, something unusual happened to propel the virus globally, says Anne Rimoin, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies emerging infectious diseases.
co-authored by Rimoin found many different strains of monkeypox in humans, creating a bank of genomic diversity that could lead to the emergence of human-adapted monkeypoxes that would be more transmissible.genetics of this virus. Still, human factors could just as easily explain the outbreak—and seem more likely with the announcement of the two superspreading raves. “I know there’s going to be a lot of scientific questions around this to get at precisely what is occurring,” says McCollum. “I do think that what we’re seeing right now is consistent with what we know about monkeypox.”
That’s because many of the early patients were men who reported recently having sex with other men, and were identified at sexual health appointments. That common behavior also hinted at a transmission route. Last week, the WHO and European CDC both began to narrow in on sexual contact as a possible driver of the outbreak. “We want to be really careful not to stigmatize a specific group,” McCollum says. “This virus can equally affect all genders—what we’re getting at here is close contact.
It’s possible that the virus simply found its way into a community of people who traveled widely, seeding global cases. That’s something we’ve seen before: HIV-like viruses have probably spilled from apes to humans well before 1900, butIn all likelihood, the real answer is a combination of factors, says Rimoin. To untangle them, outbreak investigators will need to gather more detail on the specifics of each case.
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