The monkeypox virus, now diagnosed in hundreds of people in 26 countries, may have been quietly circulating for years before its sudden emergence worldwide, scientists have theorised. 7NEWS
, now diagnosed in hundreds of people in 26 countries, may have been quietly circulating for years before its sudden emergence worldwide, scientists have theorised.
“What we don’t know is how long that may have been. We don’t know if it’s weeks, months or possibly a couple of years.”At the University of Leuven in Belgium, virology professor Marc Van Ranst said his laboratory’s sequencing revealed genetic mutations of the virus that were “limited” and “none of them are smoking guns”.
The samples they investigated descended from a version of monkeypox that was identified in Singapore, Israel, Nigeria and the United Kingdom between 2017 and 2019. In Africa, most human cases of monkeypox have historically occurred through exposure to infected animals such as rodents and not through person-to-person transmission.“What’s likely happened is an endemic infectious disease from Africa found its way into a social and sexual network and then was greatly aided by major amplification events like raves in Belgium to disseminate around the world,” Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security, said.
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