The case of the carabiniere who died in Cuba is being investigated. Lethality is low (1 case out of 10 thousand). There is a vaccine and an antiviral already approved and there is evidence that the vaccine against human smallpox is valid even after 40 years
The update of confirmed cases in Italy by monkeypox comes to 714, 52 more in a week. This was revealed by the latest bulletin of the Ministry of Health. Of these, 190 are infected with travel abroad. The average age is 37 years (with a range from 14 to 71 years) and the clear preponderance of the male sex is confirmed: 704 men infected, 10 women. The region with the most cases is Lombardy (308), followed by Lazio (128), Emilia Romagna (73) and Veneto (48). Calabria, Basilicata, Molise, Umbria and Valle d’Aosta stand still at zero cases.
The case of the carabiniere under consideration
Meanwhile, it could be the first Italian victim a lieutenant of the carabinieri, Germano Mancini, in command of the carabinieri station of Scorzè and died in Cuba. He had been on vacation for a few days when he felt bad and got worse until he lost his life. The commander died Sunday and the Cuban health facilities they performed tests and reported monkeypox infection (would be the first on the island). Our authorities have not confirmed that the one recorded in Cuba was indeed a case of monkeypox. For now there is talk of a death caused by a sudden virus. “No alarmism”, says the director of Spallanzani in Rome, Francesco Vaia and recalls that in the face of over 42,000 cases notified in non-endemic countries, therefore outside Central and West Africa, there were only 5 deaths, equal to a lethality of 1.2 in 10,000.
Incubation and how it is transmitted
The period of incubation of monkeypox is generally between 6 and 13 days, but can vary from 5 to 21 days.
Exist three ways where it is possible to be exposed to sufficient amounts of viruses to get infected (we talked about this in detail HERE
): direct skin-to-skin contact with lesions caused by the viruscontact with contaminated objects e close contact with respiratory secretions such as the saliva of a person with lesions in their mouth or throat.
Epidemiological evidence says the current monkeypox epidemic is driven by direct skin-to-skin contact, specifically, close intimate contact between sexual partners. What is less clear is whether urine, feces, blood, semen, or vaginal fluids can spread the virus, the extent to which people without symptoms can infect others, and the role of inhaled respiratory particles in transmission.
Currently, the virus is spreading mainly among men who have sex with men, but mostly among men who have multiple sexual partners, although monkeypox is not classified as a sexually transmitted disease.
Asymptomatic and infectious surfaces
Two recent studies have also focused on two rare possibilities, but which can help shed light on the peculiarities of transmission of the virus: the presence of asymptomaticwhich would make it more difficult to stem the chain of infections, and the transmission by contact to a crowded event without sexual intercourse (see the related article HERE
).
A recent study of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Americans and the Utah Department of Health (UDHHS) confirmed the presence of viruses on surfaces of the environment. The researchers identified 21 surfaces, both porous (like textiles) and non-porous (like handles) virus-positive in the home of two patients infected with monkeypox, despite the hygiene measures they had put in place. It is not known whether the virus on the surfaces was able to infect itself because the team tried to replicate the virus in the laboratory without success.
The vaccine (even the ancient one) and the antiviral
Normally the disease ends with symptoms that resolve spontaneously within 14-21 days, but there are more fragile categories, such as children and pregnant women, who are at greater risk. Although they are already approved a vaccine (MVA-BN) and a specific treatment (tecovirimat) for monkeypox, the World Health Organization warns that they are not yet widely available, and populations around the world under the age of 40 or 50 no longer benefit from the protection afforded by previous human smallpox vaccination programs. Furthermore, the immunity given by the vaccine is not instantaneous: it takes 2 weeks for the antibody titers to peak after the first dose.
Currently the vaccine is offered in Italy to high-risk categories identified by the ministry (see article HERE
). The INMI Spallanzani of Rome is one of the Research Institutes that probe the immunological memory of people vaccinated against smallpox at the time. Preliminary data indicate that over 90% of people who were vaccinated over 40 years ago for smallpox have antibodies which react with the monkeypox virus, sometimes even in high quantities.
August 23, 2022 (change August 23, 2022 | 16:14)
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