The WHO Regional Office for Africa said on 31 local time that seven African countries have reported a cumulative total of nearly 1,400 cases of monkeypox (1,392 suspected cases and 44 confirmed cases) to the World Health Organization this year. Monkeypox is prevalent mainly in the western and central regions of Africa. Since 2017, there has been a surge in the number of reported monkeypox cases in several African countries; the African monkeypox epidemic peaked in 2020 with more than 6,300 suspected cases.
The fact that it is also infectious (animal to human and secondary transmission occurs between humans) has led many people to compare monkeypox with the new coronavirus.
In fact, monkeypox and the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 are not the same thing. The major difference is that the new coronavirus is an RNA virus that evolves rapidly, whereas the monkeypox virus is a relatively stable DNA virus. DNA viruses are much better at finding and repairing mutations than RNA viruses, meaning that the monkeypox virus will be less mutagenic.
Monkeypox virus is not as susceptible to human-to-human transmission as neocoronavirus and, according to research, we now have off-the-shelf drugs and vaccines to block its spread because of its proximity to smallpox virus.
In addition, unlike neocoronavirus, which can be transmitted by aerosols (microdroplets suspended in the air), monkeypox is thought to be transmitted by close contact with body fluids, such as saliva from coughing sputters. This suggests that close contacts of monkeypox-infected individuals would be much less common than newly crowned infected individuals. Although both viruses cause flu-like symptoms, monkeypox also causes swollen lymph nodes and visible pus-bearing lesions on the face, hands, and feet. Most people infected with monkeypox will recover within a few weeks without treatment.
Although there are vast differences between monkeypox virus and neocoronavirus, both are tested by the PCR technique, which is an accurate and sensitive test and is the preferred laboratory test.
Confirmed cases of monkeypox as defined by WHO: cases that meet the definition of a suspected or probable case and are laboratory confirmed as monkeypox virus when virus-specific DNA sequences are detected by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and/or sequencing.
In the screening test for Neoplastic virus, the Nucleic Acid Rapid Test is the "gold standard" for confirming the diagnosis of Neoplastic patients and is a fundamental tool in our outbreak prevention and control. It has been used in many scenarios such as fever clinics, airports, customs, etc. It is the first barrier of prevention and control. It is mainly through the use of efficient amplification reagents, releasing agents and portable amplification instrument as the most important new crown nucleic acid rapid test reagents and equipment. The releasing agent directly lyses the cells to release nucleic acid with the high efficiency amplification reagent on the machine to amplify, and obtain the rapid nucleic acid detection results of new crown in a shorter period of time to advance the new crown prevention gate.
Although both viruses have caused panic, there is no need to worry too much for the time being because monkeypox is generally transmitted in Africa. Prevention and control of New Coronavirus pneumonia remains our primary goal for now.
