This announcement triggered panic among many people, who began recalling the two-year COVID-19 pandemic that had been a global nightmare.
Difference Between Monkeypox and Coronavirus:
First, it is important to understand that monkeypox can be fatal, but its symptoms are usually mild. The disease causes flu-like symptoms and a skin rash.
The first human case was recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970, and the disease remained confined for a long time to about ten African countries.
However, in 2022, it began spreading to the rest of the world, particularly to developed countries that had not previously reported any cases.
What are the risks?
It is difficult to determine the stage at which the disease becomes fatal. Before the monkeypox outbreak in 2022, an inaccurate mortality rate ranging between 1% and 10% was often mentioned.
This significant variation is due to the existence of two main strains of the monkeypox virus: clade 1 and clade 2, the latter being much less dangerous.
It was this second strain that caused the outbreak in 2022, with a mortality rate of less than 1%. It also effectively explains the efficiency of healthcare systems in developed countries.
Completely Different
The coronavirus and the monkeypox virus are completely different. The former is classified under coronaviruses, while the latter belongs to the category of enveloped viruses. This makes COVID-19 more capable of spreading and creating variants, according to the American Society for Microbiology.
Coronavirus is considered a respiratory virus, spreading when an infected person breathes out small droplets containing the virus.
Since COVID-19 spreads quickly through the air, it is difficult to control because one person can cause many others to become infected simply by breathing.
Additionally, infected individuals can spread the virus even if they do not show symptoms.
Less Transmissible
However, monkeypox can be transmitted through respiratory secretions, but it is not a respiratory virus, which makes it less transmissible.
Monkeypox primarily spreads through direct contact (usually prolonged) with an infected person, especially when touching the rash caused by the virus or bodily fluids.
It can also spread by touching objects and surfaces that were used by an infected person and have come into prolonged contact with skin lesions.
Additionally, sexual contact is one of the main ways the virus is transmitted. Infected pregnant women can also pass the virus to the fetus during pregnancy or to the newborn during childbirth.
Symptoms:
COVID-19 symptoms typically appear 2 to 14 days after exposure to the virus and can include fever, chills, headache, sore throat, and loss of taste or smell.
In monkeypox, it may take up to 3 weeks for symptoms to appear after exposure to the virus.Blisters filled with pus and a rash.
Additionally, monkeypox differs from COVID-19 in that it involves the appearance of blisters filled with pus and a rash. It can be painful and itchy, and tends to spread on the face and limbs.
Most people recover from monkeypox within two to four weeks.
The disease can be severe, and even fatal, in certain cases, such as with chronic illnesses, but the mortality rate is not close to that of COVID-19.
Can monkeypox turn into a pandemic? Health experts warn that if it is not contained, the virus could spread globally once again.
Meanwhile, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control considers this risk to be low.”
According to the American Society for Microbiology, there are many differences compared to what happened with the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 was a new virus when it emerged in late 2019, so there were no vaccines or immunity, leading to its rapid spread.
New variants and the virus’s efficient airborne transmission helped it evolve into a global pandemic.
Effective Vaccines
Monkeypox isn’t new; it was discovered decades ago, and scientists understand it well, unlike COVID-19. There are effective vaccines for monkeypox, but they’re not available in Africa. In contrast, developed countries launched vaccination campaigns easily when the virus spread in 2022.
The question remains: Will monkeypox spread worldwide two years after the initial outbreak?
Experts say it’s still too early to answer this question, but the ‘Mpox’ disease is currently posing a serious crisis in parts of the African continent.
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