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The next pandemic?

Planigale

Philosopher
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Messages
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There is an outbreak of monkeypox in the UK.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/monkeypox-cases-confirmed-in-england-latest-updates

Monkeypox is closely related to smallpox, and has a 10% CFR. Despite its name it is probably acquired by contact with rodents. It has been thought of as a zoonosis acquired in West Africa, and occasionally imported into Europe or the US. The recent cases differ from this. Current monkey pox cases differ from classic monkeypox in that they lack a prodrome of a febrile illness before the pox appears. So it is much harder to identify a case. Currently some of the cases are sexually transmitted within the GBMSM community, and cases have also been identified elsewhere in Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/18/monkeypox-alert-spain-men-show-symptoms

It is clear that monkeypox has been circulating in Europe for sometime unrecognised because this strain is atypical, hopefully it may be less virulent also. However there is also concerns about its transmission, if it is just transmitted by sexual contact then it should be easy to control as the successful eradication of HIV has demonstrated (sarcasm). However smallpox was transmissible by fomites, skin particles from infected persons carrying the virus, and there is uncertainty whether monkeypox may be transmissible by this route. The UK is urgently sourcing monkeypox vaccine, and resurrecting smallpox vaccine stocks (partly effective against monkeypox).

https://promedmail.org/promed-posts/
 
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Maybe a big epidemic like the ebolavirus outbreak of 2014.

The next pandemic I vote some form of avian influenza.
 
Monkeypox is not that contagious. It's been popping up in small quantities for years. It isn't at all contagious like smallpox or chickenpox which are airborne. Monkeypox is droplet spread and requires close contact despite that Spain 'expert' calling it airborne.

We are still at risk for a highly pathogenic flu virus. And it will be a problem to make the usual vaccines for because it kills the egg-producing chickens and we grow the vaccine virus in eggs.
 
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Lets me see - I think we can take some confidence from the "advice" of the previous president...

1. It will weaken when we get into April, in the warmer weather
2. It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.
3. Its going to fade away.
4. 99% of cases are totally harmless.
5. We (the US) will have the lowest mortality rate in the World.
6. Mexico is partly to blame
7. Children are virtually immune.
8. The media is overblowing fears about the virus ahead of Election Day.
9. What happens is, you get better after being sick. That's what happens: You get better.
10 You get better and then you’re immune.
11 A CDC study shows that 85 percent of the people wearing masks catch the virus.
12 You can treat it with light inside the body. Light makes it go away
13 Take hydroxychloroquine
14 Bleach kills the virus
15 The Chinese are to blame


On the other hand, maybe not.

I just hope, for America's sake, that whoever is in the White House when the next pandemic hits, its not the ignorant Orange Moron or any of his misbegotten followers.
 
There is an outbreak of monkeypox in the UK.

So I've noticed. I don't see it reaching pandemic status, but it's obviously mutated to pass between humans so I'm not betting money on it!

The next pandemic I vote some form of avian influenza.

That's my current odds-on favourite, and H5N1 in particular.

And you just know it's going to start in China.
 
The US government has ordered 18,000,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine.

https://www.precisionvaccinations.c...eze-dried-monkeypox-smallpox-vaccines-ordered

Although I cannot find a publicly available source I believe the UK has sourced 6,000,000 doses of vaccine. Currently the UK is using emergency supplies of smallpox vaccine to ring vaccinate contacts of monkeypox cases.

This outbreak is causing some upset in STD clinics, since they are now having to reintroduce isolation measures introduced for covid that have just been dropped.
 
The US government has ordered 18,000,000 doses of monkeypox vaccine.

https://www.precisionvaccinations.c...eze-dried-monkeypox-smallpox-vaccines-ordered

Although I cannot find a publicly available source I believe the UK has sourced 6,000,000 doses of vaccine. Currently the UK is using emergency supplies of smallpox vaccine to ring vaccinate contacts of monkeypox cases.

This outbreak is causing some upset in STD clinics, since they are now having to reintroduce isolation measures introduced for covid that have just been dropped.
18 million doses? BS. From your link:
If exercised, additional options on the BARDA contract support the conversion of up to a total of approximately 13 million freeze-dried doses of JYNNEOS smallpox vaccine that are expected to be manufactured in 2024 and 2025.

That's not supported by a search string for "us order monkey pox vaccine". And the article says smallpox vaccine. From my current investigation, there is an hypothesis that smallpox vaccine included coverage for the closely related monkeypox virus. Now that we don't vaccinate against smallpox, monkeypox is increasing.

But the numbers are a drop in the bucket. And we already had a run in with smallpox vaccine revival when there was some terrorist bio-threat. It did not go well and the campaign was suspended.

I'm voting that is BS until I see something more substantial about it.
 
European update.
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/monkeypox-cases-reported-uk-and-portugal

Portugal reports 5 confirmed and 20 suspected cases, all young men and Spain has reported eight suspected cases. Seven cases from the UK, four of whom are a GBMSM cluster unrelated to the other three cases. Sexual transmission is suspected for most of the European cases.

Also one US case, no contact with other cases identified

https://www.mass.gov/news/massachusetts-public-health-officials-confirm-case-of-monkeypox
 
Are you still calling this a potential pandemic virus? Just curious because there's no indication it will be widespread anytime soon.
 
There is an outbreak of monkeypox in the UK.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/monkeypox-cases-confirmed-in-england-latest-updates

Monkeypox is closely related to smallpox, and has a 10% CFR. Despite its name it is probably acquired by contact with rodents. It has been thought of as a zoonosis acquired in West Africa, and occasionally imported into Europe or the US. The recent cases differ from this. Current monkey pox cases differ from classic monkeypox in that they lack a prodrome of a febrile illness before the pox appears. So it is much harder to identify a case. Currently some of the cases are sexually transmitted within the GBMSM community, and cases have also been identified elsewhere in Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/18/monkeypox-alert-spain-men-show-symptoms

It is clear that monkeypox has been circulating in Europe for sometime unrecognised because this strain is atypical, hopefully it may be less virulent also. However there is also concerns about its transmission, if it is just transmitted by sexual contact then it should be easy to control as the successful eradication of HIV has demonstrated (sarcasm). However smallpox was transmissible by fomites, skin particles from infected persons carrying the virus, and there is uncertainty whether monkeypox may be transmissible by this route. The UK is urgently sourcing monkeypox vaccine, and resurrecting smallpox vaccine stocks (partly effective against monkeypox).

https://promedmail.org/promed-posts/
No it's not "The next pandemic".

There are a handful of cases, the disease is known and treatable. It's difficult to catch, requiring prolonged close contact or exchange of bodily fluids. Smallpox vaccination provides ~85% protection. And there is a monkeypox vaccine.

And your claim of a CFR of 10% is nonsense; 1% is more typical unless patients are immunocompromised. Even the DRC outbreak, with poor medical support peaked at 2.6%.
 
No it's not "The next pandemic".

There are a handful of cases, the disease is known and treatable. It's difficult to catch, requiring prolonged close contact or exchange of bodily fluids. Smallpox vaccination provides ~85% protection. And there is a monkeypox vaccine.

And your claim of a CFR of 10% is nonsense; 1% is more typical unless patients are immunocompromised. Even the DRC outbreak, with poor medical support peaked at 2.6%.

There are two clades (strains) for monkeypox. The Congo clade with a 10% CFR and the West African clade with a less than 1% IFR (cf SARS-CoV-2 with a CFR of 0,1% approx.)

https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/vir.0.81215-0#tab2

The current outbreak seems to be a variant of the West African strain with a low mortality rate. No deaths have been reported. Infections do not have to be fatal to be a pandemic.

A pandemic is defined as “an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people”. The classical definition includes nothing about population immunity, virology or disease severity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3127276/

I accept that the numbers are currently small but certainly the outbreak crosses international boundaries and the numbers are likely to rise. No one argues that HIV was not a pandemic but <1% of the population was infected by HIV.

The thread has a question mark at the end. I am not claiming it will be, but I think it is important to remember that just because we have had one pandemic it does not mean we are safe from another. Perhaps the next one will be an HPAI virus, or a variant of Nipah, but with global warming perhaps an arbovirus like West Nile or Zika. The last major pandemic before SARS-CoV-2 was HIV, not easy to catch, requiring exchange of body fluids (although droplet transmission is actually thought to be the major route of human to human transmission of monkeypox), but still causing one million deaths a year. TB is not very transmissible but is a pandemic causing more than one million deaths a year. Being hard to catch does not necessarily mean an infection cannot become a pandemic.

The infection may be treatable, I would be interested in your evidence for treatability. You claimed it is treatable so it is your responsibility to provide evidence for the effectiveness of treatment.

It may be vaccine preventable, so is polio, but we have had an effective polio vaccine for 70 years, and we have not eradicated polio (or measles or ...).
 
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Looks like some inevitable theories are starting up…
 

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That's my current odds-on favourite, and H5N1 in particular.

And you just know it's going to start in China.

Scary times.

Wiki
The global spread of H5N1 influenza in birds is considered a significant pandemic threat. While other H5N1 influenza strains are known, they are significantly different on a genetic level from a recent, highly pathogenic, emergent strain of H5N1, which was able to achieve hitherto unprecedented global spread in 2008.[1] The H5N1 strain is a fast-mutating, highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI) found in multiple bird species. It is both epizootic (an epidemic in non-humans) and panzootic (a disease affecting animals of many species especially over a wide area).
 
Portugal reports 5 confirmed and 20 suspected cases, all young men and Spain has reported eight suspected cases. Seven cases from the UK, four of whom are a GBMSM cluster unrelated to the other three cases. Sexual transmission is suspected for most of the European cases.

It's actually spreading quite quickly, then.

Just what we needed!
 
I'll let my followers on Truth Social know that the only natural way to protect your body from monkeypox is to have as much sex with monkeys as possible.
 
It's nowhere near as infectious as COVID.

But much more infectious than HIV. The reduced transmissibility means the time to the peak of the epidemic curve will be longer, it does not necessarilly mean fewer infections, just that they will be spread out over a longer time. Unlike Covid almost certainly immunity after a natural infection will be high and long lasting.

As a DNA virus Monkeypox's mutation rate will be slower than for SARS-CoV-2 (an RNA virus), but we may see some evolution towards increased transmissibility. I think the concern is it can be spread by the respiratory route (unlike e.g. HIV), and if it became more of a respiratory pathogen it might be hard to control.

There is a real concern that with the world exiting from lockdown there will be a lot of partying, especially with a number of places having their first Pride festivals after two years without.

One thing I wonder about and have not been able to find out is about use of prep (pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV to enable unprotected sex) by those who have become infected. Since monkeypox unlike HIV is transmitted by skin to skin contact, droplets and possibly bedclothes, condom use would not be protective (HIV requires an exchange of bodyfluids), but the prep itself might be. Equally exposure to prep might drive resistance mutations in monkeypox.
 
...snip...

One thing I wonder about and have not been able to find out is about use of prep (pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV to enable unprotected sex) by those who have become infected. Since monkeypox unlike HIV is transmitted by skin to skin contact, droplets and possibly bedclothes, condom use would not be protective (HIV requires an exchange of bodyfluids), but the prep itself might be. Equally exposure to prep might drive resistance mutations in monkeypox.

I did wonder about that.
 
A dozen new cases in the UK today so the total has doubled overnight
 
A dozen new cases in the UK today so the total has doubled overnight

Summary to date

UK has reported an additional 11 cases on top of the previous 9 (total 20). In Europe 26 cases have been confirmed; Belgium (2), France (1), Italy (1), Portugal (14), Spain (7), and Sweden (1). Portugal has reported additional 20 suspected cases, and Spain has reported additional 23 suspected cases which are awaiting laboratory confirmation.

In total, since 14 May, there have been 37* confirmed, non-travel related cases of monkeypox worldwide, with 26 in EU/EEA countries. The majority of cases are in young men, self-identifying as MSM. There have been no deaths, and two hospitalisations for reasons other than isolation were reported worldwide. Health authorities across countries have stated that further cases are expected.

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/epidemiological-update-monkeypox-outbreak

*Counting additional 11 from UK this would be 48 confirmed cases with an additional 43 suspected cases in Spain and Portugal.
 
I agree it had to be taken seriously but the crazy right is already claiming this is the next excuse for a woke takeover of the world.

At least they can't claim smallpox vaccine is novel. Of course it does inject self replicating alien DNA into your cells!

This is far more helpful to the radical religious right as an STD affecting the left wing / BGMSM community.
 
Interesting since monkeypox has been around a long time. Perhaps the NPIs we've been practicing has decreased our innate resistance to disease as we've all been exposed to less stuff for the last 2 years. I've been following influenza in the USA and it's now at quite high levels for this time of year and it's a known seasonal virus. It's still relatively low compared to the typical incidence in the winter but quite a bit above what is seen this time of year.

Perhaps the Covid-19 NPIs have re-arranged our normal infection/immunity responses a bit.
 
Interesting since monkeypox has been around a long time. Perhaps the NPIs we've been practicing has decreased our innate resistance to disease as we've all been exposed to less stuff for the last 2 years. I've been following influenza in the USA and it's now at quite high levels for this time of year and it's a known seasonal virus. It's still relatively low compared to the typical incidence in the winter but quite a bit above what is seen this time of year.

Perhaps the Covid-19 NPIs have re-arranged our normal infection/immunity responses a bit.
Or it's just the natural cycle of a disease. There's an interaction between enough hosts to spread disease and said disease entering the susceptible population.

There seems to be a connection to men having sex with men, and this at a time when the pool of susceptible hosts, those without past small pox vaccinations which stopped being routine in the 70s, has been growing.

The news media isn't selling as much news with the COVID pandemic and this makes a new sensational story.
 
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Or it's just the natural cycle of a disease. There's an interaction between enough hosts to spread disease and said disease entering the susceptible population.

There seems to be a connection to men having sex with men, and this at a time when the pool of susceptible hosts, those without past small pox vaccinations which stopped being routine in the 70s, has been growing.

Could be. But small pox vaxed peeps are now many decades post. It never worked super well against monkey pox so would it still be that effective by now? Perhaps.

The news media isn't selling as much news with the COVID pandemic and this makes a new sensational story.

No kidding! Media's got to o what media does. Sad but inevitable I suppose.
 
And it turns out a Rave might have been one source of the outbreak.

Reason behind Monkeypox spread - sex at 2 rave parties: Experts
Other scientists have pointed out that it will be difficult to disentangle whether it is sex itself or the close contact related to sex that has driven the recent spread of monkeypox across Europe. ...

A leading adviser to the World Health Organization described the unprecedented outbreak of the rare disease monkeypox in developed countries as a random event that might be explained by risky sexual behaviour at two recent mass events in Europe. In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr David Heymann, who formerly headed WHO's emergencies department, said the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission among gay and bisexual men at two raves held in Spain and Belgium. Monkeypox has not previously triggered widespread outbreaks beyond Africa, where it is endemic in animals.

"We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission," said Heymann.

That marks a significant departure from the disease's typical pattern of spread in central and western Africa, where people are mainly infected by animals like wild rodents and primates and outbreaks have not spilled across borders.
 
Outstanding piece here at WaPo on monkeypox, as African doctors shake their heads.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/24/africa-europe-monkeypox-virus-outbreak

In a part of Nigeria that has dealt with monkeypox outbreaks for years, one doctor saw the photos circulating in Western media this week and chuckled.

“Those are the very severe cases,” said Oyewale Tomori, a virologist in the nation’s southwest. “Like, ‘Ahh! This is monkeypox!’ ”
...

What bothers infectious-disease experts across the continent is the double standard that has emerged since monkeypox grabbed the world’s attention: Few seemed to care, or even notice, until people in the West started getting sick.
 
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