A dog was infected with monkeypox by its owners.
Published: August 22, 2022 at 11:12
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Several months after the global outbreak of monkeypox, more is known about the disease. Monkeypox, which occurs with fever and skin lesions, has been known for decades in several African countries.
The novelty is that this year it has extended to many other countries, especially in Europe and America, for now exceed 35,000 cases. Some early deaths have been reported as part of the current outbreak. The patient profile also stands out. They are mainly adult men and maintain same-sex relationshipscontrary to what has been observed so far in Africa, where the disease affects many children.
A first transmission from humans to dogs
Originally, monkeypox was identified as a disease transmitted to humans mainly by animals, which are also rodents and rarely primates.
The high level of contamination among humans is a novelty of the current epidemic. But it remains to be seen whether humans can in turn transmit the disease to an animal.
The question is not anecdotal, because animals could be a breeding ground for contamination in which the virus would continue to evolve in a potentially dangerous way.
A case study, published in the Lancet, recently described a first transmission from human patients to a dog: two men who contaminated their greyhound in Paris.
Prevent the virus from spreading to wild animals
For the moment, however, it is only a case and, according to the WHO, the danger would rather be that the virus spreads to wild and non-domestic animals.
“It is through the process in which one animal infects the next and the next and the next that we see the rapid evolution of the virus”, Michael Ryan, a WHO expert, pointed out this week.
Another important point, after further investigations were carried out on the animal contaminated by its owners by the National Reference Center for Orthopoxviruses. These investigations revealed that the dog was not sick. If it were “Carrier of the virus, did not develop the disease” summarizes researcher Christophe Cordevant a Parisian.
This news is good, if the dog had been infected and had expelled the virus, it could have been a new reservoir, contaminating other dogs.
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