Source: trendy meditation (id:xinchaochensi)
Author: north wind
In recent weeks, news about monkeypox around the world has attracted a lot of attention. Monkeypox, which was basically only prevalent in Africa, has appeared in more than 20 countries. It can be said that this is not a small public health news. Some people feel very nervous, while some stocks rise as a result. There are indeed many unknown places for the prevalence of monkeypox, which still need medical workers to investigate and study.
Monkeypox virus was discovered by scientists on experimental crab eating monkeys in 1958, hence the name monkeypox. However, later studies have shown that primates are not the natural host of monkeypox virus. In fact, rodents are the main natural host of monkeypox virus. In 1970, the first human case of monkeypox virus was found in Congo.
Monkeypox cases have been reported in central and West Africa. According to the data of recent years, thousands of cases are reported every year on average. However, considering the general public health level in Africa, this figure is likely to be significantly underestimated. The usual mode of transmission may be related to eating wild animals and being scratched and bitten by wild animals. The transmission capacity between people is not very high. Monkeypox virus can be divided into two branches, Central Africa and West Africa. The West Africa branch, which is prevalent in many countries, has relatively mild toxicity. The reported mortality in Africa is less than 1%. Considering the medical conditions in developed countries, the mortality should be lower. Smallpox vaccine has a good defense against monkeypox. According to expert estimates, the defense may be 85%.
From the known information, monkeypox is not a very dangerous virus. Although it has many similarities with its relative smallpox, its ferocity is not at the same level. Moreover, the infectivity is also much weaker. At the same time, the symptoms of skin diseases like smallpox are very obvious, which is not conducive to the spread of pathogens. Under the environment of modern society, infectious diseases with the ability to conceal transmission have obvious advantages.
At the same time, although most young people have not been vaccinated against smallpox, the older generation have basically been vaccinated against smallpox, forming an immune barrier against monkeypox. The structure of double stranded DNA also makes it have low mutation ability. The probability of vaccine failure is very low. From these perspectives, the biggest threat of monkeypox may be the impact of scars on beauty.
From this point of view, everyone’s response to monkeypox is a bit excessive. The who also said that so far, monkeypox poses a very low threat to countries. However, considering the actual situation, this overreaction is also justified.
First, we are still in the biggest public health event after the 1918 pandemic. At this time, the public is obviously highly sensitive to the topic of public health; Second, although the virulence of monkeypox is not strong, the visual impact of purulent pox blisters is still obvious; Third, smallpox, a relative of monkeypox, has accumulated a great reputation in human history. It may have harvested hundreds of millions of human lives in history, and its shadow has covered human history for thousands of years. In this regard, overreaction is also very reasonable. So far, various media may have overreacted to monkeypox.
However, the threat of monkeypox does exist. This monkeypox epidemic is the first time that monkeypox has been prevalent in communities in many countries and regions outside Africa. This is obviously different from the epidemic characteristics of monkeypox before. If we do not know what the reason is, it is obviously irresponsible for public health. However, so far, we still do not know what the reason is.
At present, a popular speculation is that the community spread of monkeypox is closely related to several gay parties in Europe, because the proportion of LGBT community members among monkeypox patients in several European countries is very high. According to the tracking of public health personnel, the activity trajectories of some patients also intersect with these parties. From a scientific point of view, this explanation is also very reasonable. Close contact is entirely possible to spread monkeypox. Mucosal transmission is very reasonable. Dense occasions are more suitable for greater transmission.
However, there are still some problems with this explanation. The skin symptoms of monkeypox are so obvious and scary. Can you really take this symptom to some negative distance in-depth communication parties? Is it simply not noticed, or does monkeypox actually have the ability to spread asymptomatic or mild symptoms? Obviously, these questions have not been clarified yet, and the answers to these questions will provide key guidance for the next work against monkeypox.
If we had paid more attention to the monkeypox epidemic in Africa before, perhaps this problem would not be difficult to solve, but for a long time, people in the noble civilized world obviously did not pay much attention to it. Fortunately, if the participants of these parties are investigated, some conclusions can be drawn. However, this point is not politically correct. In recent years, the academic community has always been cautious when it comes to the issue of LGBT. Conducting too detailed investigation in this area may bring some unpleasant consequences.
Monkeypox vaccine is ready-made, just use smallpox vaccine directly. In order to defend against possible bioterrorism attacks, some countries have a certain amount of smallpox vaccine reserves. At the same time, some pharmaceutical companies are still developing new versions of smallpox vaccine. This is the case with the smallpox vaccine to be purchased in the United States. Technically, there is no problem in this aspect. When monkey pox spread in Europe and the United States, some emergency vaccinations were also carried out.
However, the problem is not technical. Considering the scope of this impact, in order to avoid more community transmission of monkeypox, the scale of vaccination may be large. Considering the increasingly exaggerated anti vaccine voice of European and American countries due to the new crown vaccine, the resistance to vaccination will not be small, which is obviously not an easy thing. After all, among various conspiracy theories about biotechnology in Europe and the United States, smallpox can be said to be a very concerned element. For this monkeypox epidemic, conspiracy theorists in Europe and the United States have made many exaggerated statements, such as “we have defeated the new crown blockade conspiracy of deep state, and now they have arranged a new conspiracy.”, In such an environment, if monkeypox spreads to the extent that large-scale vaccination is required, it is not difficult to imagine what kind of chicken flies and dogs jump.
When it comes to smallpox vaccine, the author hopes that by taking this opportunity, relevant domestic research can also be promoted and reserved when necessary. The domestic reserve and Research on smallpox vaccine is represented by the “Tiantan strain” vaccinia strain, which is a vaccinia vaccine strain screened by Chinese scientists. It has light side effects and good immunity, and has made great contributions to the eradication of smallpox in China.
Now, as a potential carrier, it is also used in some vaccine research. There are HIV and Xinguan vaccines developed based on Tiantan strain. However, both of them are in the early experimental stage. Compared with the United States, China’s reserves in this regard are somewhat lower. Although the old-fashioned vaccinia vaccine has good results, the side effects are a little too severe according to the current standards. This problem is also considered in the development of the new vaccinia vaccine to a large extent. It is undoubtedly a good thing to take this opportunity to promote China’s technological upgrading in this regard and establish necessary reserves.
As for the mutation of monkeypox, some subtle news came. Portuguese scientists sequenced the monkeypox virus and determined the source of the virus strain. However, the nucleic acid mutation sites found were higher than the average level of monkeypox, a double stranded DNA virus. However, there is no need to worry too much. The stability of monkeypox virus is determined by its basic structure. The increase of mutation sites is probably just a coincidence. So far, no functional mutations have been found. So far, these mutations do not explain anything. There is no need to worry too much. However, if people have more sequencing studies on monkeypox strains in Africa, they may have more understanding of the situation behind this phenomenon.
Covax, the United Nations Organization for the distribution of the new crown vaccine, has a slogan that no one is safe until the last one is safe. In this era of globalization, this sentence is an accurate description of the risk of infectious diseases. Unfortunately, not many people really realize this. For example, if it were not for the community epidemic of monkeypox, many people would not know that thousands of monkeypox cases are reported in Africa every year, and hundreds of cases in Europe and the United States have attracted hundreds of times more attention than monkeypox cases in Africa. If we had paid more attention to these infectious diseases from Africa, perhaps this monkeypox epidemic would not have happened.
Of course, monkeypox is far from the only public health problem that needs to be solved in Africa. It can even be said that monkeypox cannot rank in the top 20 in terms of the public health problems that Africa has to face. At the same time, these problems can not be solved simply by public health programs. For example, epidemiologists believe that a large source of monkeypox in Africa is jungle meat, which refers to the hunting of some wild animals in the jungle. In Africa, these animals include primates, large rodents and other animals.
Primates obviously have great risks. They are close to human genes. Some infectious diseases carried by them are likely to pose a serious threat to humans. However, public health measures can not solve this problem. After all, hunting in some parts of Africa is really insufficient because of their protein intake; In some areas, the cultural background of hundreds of years has been involved. This is not a public health problem. However, the public health problem has never been an independent problem in the void.
However, in today’s era, public health assistance for underdeveloped countries and regions is a good thing for everyone. Of course, the assistance here does not mean adding a few items to the resumes of some young people with golden spoon backgrounds. It is the kind of assistance to teach people to fish. These countries must have their own systematic ability to deal with public health problems. But to be honest, after this new championship, I doubt how many countries in the world are willing to provide such assistance?
Back to monkeypox, if there is no functional mutation in monkeypox, European and American countries can end the community epidemic of monkeypox through the strengthening of vaccines after knowing the activity track of the infected person. This process may require many twists and turns, but the community epidemic is finally over, which is more likely; There is another possibility, because of the incomplete treatment, monkeypox has been prevalent at a low level in Europe and America for a long time, and oneortwo monkeypox infected people pop up every week. Although the harm is limited, it is really disgusting. This possibility is not very high, but considering the performances of some disease control institutions in Europe and America these days, this very low possibility is not impossible.
As for the possibility of monkeypox pandemic, it is very, very low. Unless monkeypox has obvious functional mutations, which can enhance the infectivity, break through the immune barrier of the old smallpox vaccine, and there is widespread cross species infection, this possibility will hardly occur.
The history of human response to smallpox, a relative of monkeypox, can be said to be a monument in the history of medicine. However, I wonder whether human beings can give a qualified answer to the simple question of monkeypox in this increasingly embarrassing era?