Monkeypox

2022 - 10 - 13

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Image courtesy of "Nature.com"

What does the future look like for monkeypox? (Nature.com)

Specialists don't expect that this year's outbreak will cause the kind of worldwide disruption seen with COVID-19. The monkeypox virus doesn't seem to be ...

“There’s no one particular mutation in the current virus that is a smoking gun,” Lefkowitz says, in terms of making people more ill or more likely to spread the infection. It is difficult to estimate the chances of the virus becoming more transmissible in the future, Lefkowitz and others say, although that can’t be ruled out. Researchers still don’t know what animal in Africa serves as the most important monkeypox reservoir, carrying the virus and spreading it to humans. One system, from researchers at RTI International (a non-profit global research institute headquartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina), used information from previous outbreaks of the monkeypox virus — specifically the clade 2 outbreaks — to project what could happen with the current strain. Although evidence is scarce, records from the 2017 outbreak there suggest that monkeypox is much more deadly in many of these individuals, who often have weakened immune systems. And although the CDC releases a monthly technical report on the outbreak with a set of potential scenarios, the agency says it has only moderate confidence in its predictions. (A more deadly ‘clade 1’ virus is found in Central Africa.) It is not clear that the strain causing the current outbreak is any more intrinsically transmissible than its clade 2 ancestors; rather, a form of the virus could have reached a population whose behaviours led it to spread more rapidly, says Elliot Lefkowitz, a bioinformatician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The WHO hopes to acquire 60,000 test kits to ship to Africa, but it is a logistical challenge to get people tested and diagnosed. That is a small number compared with the United States’ 26,000 cases, but is almost certainly a vast undercount; it is likely that many more are being missed in Nigeria than in the United States, Ogoina says. It is also unclear whether the apparent rise in African cases reflects a true outbreak there or is the result of more thorough testing, Lewis says. The monkeypox virus doesn’t seem to be airborne like COVID-19, highly transmissible like smallpox or long-lasting in the body like HIV. [1](#ref-CR1) by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that surveyed men who have sex with men found that around half had been curbing risky sexual activity because of concerns about the virus.

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Image courtesy of "National Institutes of Health"

Monkeypox treatment trial begins in the Democratic Republic of the ... (National Institutes of Health)

A clinical trial to evaluate the antiviral drug tecovirimat, also known as TPOXX, in adults and children with monkeypox has begun in the Democratic Republic ...

[The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention(link is external)](https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fafricacdc.org%2Fdisease-outbreak%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cjess.hiller%40nih.gov%7C5ba2ea92d4094559215008daac76af2a%7C14b77578977342d58507251ca2dc2b06%7C0%7C0%7C638011923226029459%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xz3KJ%2BMnVezq9Hr656nvYC5rUVYiZHhRCmAQa3%2B2NII%3D&reserved=0) ( [Africa CDC)(link is external)](https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fafricacdc.org%2Fdisease-outbreak%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cjess.hiller%40nih.gov%7C5ba2ea92d4094559215008daac76af2a%7C14b77578977342d58507251ca2dc2b06%7C0%7C0%7C638011923226029459%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xz3KJ%2BMnVezq9Hr656nvYC5rUVYiZHhRCmAQa3%2B2NII%3D&reserved=0) has reported 3,326 cases of monkeypox (165 confirmed; 3,161 suspected) and 120 deaths in the DRC from Jan. The collaboration has continued as a multilateral clinical research program composed of NIAID, the DRC Ministry of Health, INRB and INRB’s partners. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. Participants will be discharged from the hospital once all lesions have scabbed over or flaked off, and after they test negative for monkeypox virus in the blood for two days in a row. Since the 1970s, monkeypox virus has caused sporadic cases and outbreaks, primarily in the rainforest areas of central Africa, and in west Africa. “This clinical trial will yield critical information about the safety and efficacy of tecovirimat for monkeypox. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, the aid organization Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA) and the World Health Organization (WHO). “Monkeypox has caused a high burden of disease and death in children and adults in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and improved treatment options are urgently needed,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. National Institutes of Health, and the DRC’s National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB) are co-leading the trial as part of the government-to-government PALM partnership. The drug targets a protein that is found on both the virus that causes smallpox and the monkeypox virus. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the U.S. [monkeypox](https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/monkeypox) has begun in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

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Image courtesy of "Sierra Sun Times"

Monkeypox Treatment Trial Begins in the Democratic Republic of ... (Sierra Sun Times)

NIH partnering with INRB to evaluate tecovirimat (TPOXX). October 12, 2022 - A clinical trial to evaluate the antiviral drug tecovirimat, also known as ...

[The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention(link is external)](https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fafricacdc.org%2Fdisease-outbreak%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cjess.hiller%40nih.gov%7C5ba2ea92d4094559215008daac76af2a%7C14b77578977342d58507251ca2dc2b06%7C0%7C0%7C638011923226029459%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xz3KJ%2BMnVezq9Hr656nvYC5rUVYiZHhRCmAQa3%2B2NII%3D&reserved=0) ( [Africa CDC)(link is external)](https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fafricacdc.org%2Fdisease-outbreak%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cjess.hiller%40nih.gov%7C5ba2ea92d4094559215008daac76af2a%7C14b77578977342d58507251ca2dc2b06%7C0%7C0%7C638011923226029459%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xz3KJ%2BMnVezq9Hr656nvYC5rUVYiZHhRCmAQa3%2B2NII%3D&reserved=0) has reported 3,326 cases of monkeypox (165 confirmed; 3,161 suspected) and 120 deaths in the DRC from Jan. The collaboration has continued as a multilateral clinical research program composed of NIAID, the DRC Ministry of Health, INRB and INRB’s partners. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. Participants will be discharged from the hospital once all lesions have scabbed over or flaked off, and after they test negative for monkeypox virus in the blood for two days in a row. trial, visit the [AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) website and search TPOXX or study A5418(link is external)](https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Factgnetwork.org%2Fstudies%2Fa5418-study-of-tecovirimat-for-human-monkeypox-virus-stomp%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cjess.hiller%40nih.gov%7C5ba2ea92d4094559215008daac76af2a%7C14b77578977342d58507251ca2dc2b06%7C0%7C0%7C638011923226029459%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=nRhKQd117jFTlOSTb32KdgI5pIRb8%2FQhlyq4gxaDNYo%3D&reserved=0). Since the 1970s, monkeypox virus has caused sporadic cases and outbreaks, primarily in the rainforest areas of central Africa, and in west Africa. “This clinical trial will yield critical information about the safety and efficacy of tecovirimat for monkeypox. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, the aid organization Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA) and the World Health Organization (WHO). “Monkeypox has caused a high burden of disease and death in children and adults in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and improved treatment options are urgently needed,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. National Institutes of Health, and the DRC’s National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB) are co-leading the trial as part of the government-to-government PALM partnership. The drug targets a protein that is found on both the virus that causes smallpox and the monkeypox virus. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the U.S.

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