Both monkeypox, renamed mpox, and COVID-19 are zoonotic diseases, meaning they are transmitted from animals to humans and then from one human to another. And that’s where the similarities end..
The disease that caused the great pandemic of 2020, with a global lockdown and millions of deaths worldwide, It bears very little resemblance to this new epidemiccurrently concentrated in African countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, both due to the type of virus that causes it, as well as the routes of contagion, the affected population or the existence of a vaccine.
“They are very different diseases. Viruses belong to two very different families“, explains to RTVE.es Daniel López Acuña, epidemiologist, former senior official of the World Health Organization and professor at the Andalusian School of Public Health. The virus that causes mpox is a DNA virus, and “mutates more slowly” than SARS-COV-2, which caused COVID-19, and which was an RNA virus.
That pathogen that was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2019 was “a new and very aggressive virus, which produced a high mortality rate and for which there was no vaccine”he points out.
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The health authorities are clear: we are prepared.
“Right now I would like to transmit calmness, prudence
and say that in Spain we are well prepared,
that we have a good stock of vaccines
and a very good capacity for coordination and alertness.”
While on the African continent,
epicenter of the disease, there are already nearly 19 thousand cases this year,
Here in Spain 268 have been diagnosed
and all of the same variant as in previous years.
The new one has only reached Sweden, and it is not clear whether it is more lethal.
or if gravity is due
to African demographic conditions.
Experts do not believe
Experts do not believe
to behave the same way in Europe
and, they explain, the route of contagion,
makes it very difficult for us to reach a situation similar to that of Covid.
It is transmitted by direct contact.
“What causes the contagion fundamentally
They are skin lesions when they are on top of the vesicle.
When there is liquid inside those grains,
is that it can be contagious,
It can also be transmitted through other bodily fluids, such as saliva or semen.”
The incubation period can range from 5 to 21 days.
It usually begins with fever and malaise, and then the sores appear.
The mpox situation in Europe and its risk of contagion
Contagion by close contact and not by aerosols
One of the fundamental differences is the route of infection. While the coronavirus was transmitted by aerosols, and could therefore infect many people who were in closed, poorly ventilated spaces, the virus was transmitted by aerosols. mpox is transmitted mainly by close contact with an infected personso its transmission is potentially slower.
The WHO has made it clear: “MPOX is not Covid”“Based on our knowledge, mpox is transmitted primarily through skin-to-skin contact with mpox lesions, including during sexual intercourse,” said Hans Kluge, the organisation’s director for Europe.
Both diseases are also distinguished in the most affected population. While Covid was preying on older people or those with previous respiratory diseases, the latest variant of mpox, which has led to the declaration of an international health emergency by the WHO, It is spreading especially among children.
The existence of a vaccine will avoid “mass confinements”
But if something changes radically between both viruses it is the existence of a vaccine for monkeypoxThe fact that there was no injection against Covid, with its lethal risk, “forced drastic measures of confinement and reduction of mobility to avoid hundreds of thousands of deaths,” according to López Acuña.
“This is not a disease that will lead to mass confinement or vaccination of the entire population.“
The former director of Health Action in Crisis Situations of the WHO insists that “this is not a disease that will lead to mass confinement, nor the vaccination of the entire population.” It also helps that Many older people are vaccinated against smallpox -inoculation was mandatory in Spain until 1979-, a reminder that protects them from mpox.
European and Spanish health authorities are ruling out the need for general vaccination for the time being, and recommend vaccinating only vulnerable groups, such as people who engage in risky sexual practices or some health workers. They also do not advise carrying out controls at airports, as was the case during the coronavirus pandemic.
These controls “wouldn’t make any sense” Since monkeypox “can have an incubation period of up to three weeks,” an infected but asymptomatic person could go undetected, according to López Acuña.
“We have gained a lot of experience. We are ready”
There is consensus among experts that we are prepared for a possible detection of cases of this new variant in our country – so far the only cases recorded in Spain are of the variant that arrived in 2022. In Spain we have half a million doses, which can be divided into up to five injections by intraepidermal route, which would give a total of two million. “We have a very structured, very coordinated surveillance system. If a case occurs, we will know what we have to do,” said Isabel Portillo, from the Spanish Society of Epidemiology, on TVE.
Juan José Badiola, epidemiologist and director of the Center for Encephalopathies and Emerging Transmissible Diseases, agrees. “We had many cases in 2022.” [España fue el país fuera de África con más casos]so we have gained a lot of experience. I believe that the Spanish system is perfectly prepared to detect and act,” he assured on RNE.
RNE mornings – Monkey pox: “We must have a self-interested solidarity, what is there today is here tomorrow” – Listen now
Vaccination in Africa is essential to limit the spread of the virus
But there is also another consensus that the best solution is to help Africa with vaccines and resources, since the epicentre of the crisis, the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a country at war and with a very weak health system, and an even greater explosion of cases could facilitate the spread of mpox throughout the world. “We have to exercise solidarity that is also self-interested, because what is a problem there today, is a problem here tomorrow,” says Badiola.
“We must arm ourselves with vaccines and invest in surveillance systems, but we must not forget that vaccines are needed in developing countries,” says Amós García, an epidemiologist and member of the WHO Permanent Group for Europe.
With the memory of the coronavirus pandemic still very present, López Acuña asks not to repeat the same mistakes, which also occurred with the first outbreak of monkeypox in 2022. “Rich countries stocked up on vaccines, and there were no more vaccines for Africa nor the economic capacity to acquire them.”
The EU and the United States have announced the first donations for the countries of this continent, although the doses they have promised to send – 175,000 and 50,000 respectively – are far from those needed to deal with the crisis, some ten million according to African health authorities.
We have not learned enough from the Covid crisis, regrets López Acuña, who points out that “We hung up the towel very quickly”“We still have a long way to go to organize ourselves globally in a concerted vaccine production that is supportive and that distributes where it is most needed, and we do not have mechanisms to strengthen epidemiological surveillance in all countries,” he warns. “It is exactly the opposite of what happens to us when we embark on war conflicts.where there is an escalation of arms production and unlimited spending. Here we have not understood that it is one of the fundamental strategic actions for human health,” he concludes.
