Two people have been diagnosed with Monkeypox within a few days of each other in England. This is the first time a monkeypox case has been recorded in the United Kingdom.
According to BBC, the 1st patient traveled to Nigeria and is being treated at the Royal Free Hospital in London. The second patient was admitted to Blackpool Victoria Hospital, Lancashire. Public Health England (PHE) believes that both patients must have contracted the virus in Nigeria since they recently came back from the country at different times. PHE confirmed that there’s no UK link between the patients.
What is monkeypox?
Monkeypox is less deadly than Smallpox.
- Symptoms include blistering rash, swollen lymph nodes, fever, muscle aches, headache, backache, chills, and exhaustion
- A rash can appear on the face and other body parts. It eventually changes into a scab and falls off
- Monkeypox is considered to be a mild and rare disease that lasts for two to four weeks
- Monkeypox virus has been reported in central and west African countries
- It can be spread from an animal bite or scratch, handling meat, infected person, bodily fluids, or contaminated objects. But the risk of transmission is very low.
CNN reported, Nick Phin, the deputy director of the National Infection Service at PHE, said in a statement, "We know that in September 2017, Nigeria experienced a large sustained outbreak of monkeypox.
It is likely that monkeypox continues to circulate in Nigeria and could, therefore, affect travelers who are returning from this part of the world."
PHE stated that they are In the process of contacting other passengers and workers that were on the same trip returning from Nigeria, to get more details of possible transmissions among others.
So far, nobody else has been affected.
History
According to the Express UK, the monkeypox virus was first discovered in 1958 in the midst of laboratory monkeys. In 1970, a human was diagnosed for the first time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2003, the first cases in the US occurred. A three-year-old girl was bitten by a prairie dog in Wisconsin.
Her beginning stages started with a fever. Several weeks later, she ended up getting skin lesions. At the time, the doctors weren't familiar with the effects of her dog bite until they ran tests and studied her blood cells under a microscope. On the same day, a meat inspector in Wisconsin was infected by the monkeypox virus. His job duties included working with exotic animals which were transported from Texas and imported from West Africa.
