What is Monkeypox?
A: Monkeypox is an infectious viral
disease that can occur in humans and
some other animals.
What are the symptoms?
A: Fever, swollen lymph nodes, and a rash that forms blisters and then
crusts over.
How long is the time from exposure to onset of
symptoms?
A: It ranges from 5 to 21 days.
How long do the symptoms last?
A: Typically, 2 to 4 weeks.
There may be mild symptoms, but to what extent it may
occur without any symptoms is what?
A: Not known.
Cases may be severe, especially in whom?
A: Children, pregnant women or people with suppressed immune systems.
What causes the disease?
A: It is caused by monkeypox virus, a zoonotic virus in the genus
Orthopoxvirus.
What are the two types in humans?
A: The West African type and the Central African (Congo Basin) type.
How can it spread?
A: From handling bushmeat, animal bites or scratches, body fluids,
contaminated objects, or other close contact with an infected person.
Spread can occur by small droplets and possibly what?
A: The airborne route.
People can spread the virus from the onset of symptoms
until when?
A: Until all the lesions have scabbed and fallen off.
The disease can appear similar to what?
A: Chickenpox.
The smallpox vaccine was found to be how protective in
preventing infection in close contacts and in lessening the severity of the
disease?
A: 85%.
Other measures to protect against getting infected
include what?
A: Regular hand washing and avoiding sick people and other animals.
The risk of death has varied from 0% to what?
A: 11%.
Most people do what?
A: Recover.
Cases have significantly increased since when?
A: The 1980s.
Sporadic cases occur frequently in Central and West
Africa, and where is it highly endemic?
A: In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Who are most at risk?
A: Hunters in the tropical
forests of Central and West Africa.
It was first identified as a distinct illness in what
year?
A: In 1958 among laboratory monkeys in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Monkeys are not a natural what?
A: Reservoir of the virus.
The first cases in humans were found in what year?
A: 1970 in the DRC.
An outbreak that occurred in the United States in 2003
was traced to where?
A: A pet store where rodents imported from Ghana were sold.
Since 2017, where has a large outbreak been occurring?
A: In Nigeria.
Within a few days of the fever, lesions
characteristically appear where?
A: On the face before appearing elsewhere such as palms of the hands and
soles of the feet in a centrifugal distribution.
Symptoms may vary in people with what?
A: HIV.
Three-quarters of affected people have lesions on the
palms and soles, more than two-thirds in the mouth, a third on the genitals
and one in five have lesions where?
A: In the eyes.
After healing, the lesions may leave pale marks before
becoming what?
A: Dark scars.
f infection occurs during pregnancy, what may occur?
A: Still birth or birth defects.
The disease may be milder in people vaccinated against
what in childhood?
A: Smallpox.
Most human cases of monkeypox are acquired from an
infected animal, though the route of transmission remains what?
A: Unknown.
The virus is thought to enter the body through what?
A: Broken skin, the respiratory tract, or the mucous membranes of the eyes,
nose, or mouth.
Human-to-human transmission is thought to occur
primarily through what?
A: Close contact with an infected subject.