TROPICAL AFRICA – COCKTAIL OF DEADLY DISEASES AND NATURAL BEAUTIES

MONKEYPOX  IS ALWAYS SOMEWHERE AROUND

The climate changes and especially the controversial global warming are among the most important preconditions for nature to be in mood of revenge. If we add to this the deforestation and aggressive greed of industry, we have a big problem and not so optimistic solution. More and more, the global population depends on technical abuse of natural resources and less and less think of the consequences. The new diseases which are coming from the mystical jungles will implement  the Malthusian Theory and will bite the mankind with no mercy.

It seems that outbreaks nowadays are everywhere. If they are not international , they are national or local but they are occurring and invisible microbes do not give up to turn our happy dreams into the most horrible nightmares.

According to the latest reports from the WHO and  the CDC,from October of 2016,  the recorded monkeypox epidemics  in Central African Republic has a magnitude of small outbreaks. It is nothing so highly dangerous because the tropical part of Africa is fighting regularly with monkeypox epidemics but it is also not something to be forgotten and not analyzed as a potential global outbreak.Everything has been started in September,but the real agony has been opened with the zero patient, the hunter who died in August, 17th but without being tested and diagnosed. The chain of transmission in the period between September and October took 26 cases but the  Ira Banda health center confirmed three cases of monkeypox by laboratory. There were 10 deaths but the patients who are dying from this virus have been found not only in District of Mingala but also in District of Alindao hospital. It is interesting to notice that this is the second monkeypox epidemics in this year, while the first one was at the end of 2015 in the Prefecture of Mbomou.

The part of this illness’s name suggest us to link this virus with the family of Poxviridae,Orthopoxvirus genus.What does it mean? It means that this family includes variola virus (smallpox), vaccinia virus and cowpox virus. The monkeypox virus was identified in 1958 among monkeys kept for research but the first human case of this virus  was detected  later in 1970,  in the Democratic Republic of Congo during one of the official strategies against smallpox. The term “monkey” in this relation doesn’t give us the natural reservoir of the virus because it is still unknown. The scientists believe that rodents have some role in the process of the transmission but there are still a lot of debates about this assumptions. This viral disease looks like smallpox, but it is not as fatal as the mentioned one based on the CDC information:“In humans, the symptoms of monkeypox are similar to but milder than the symptoms of smallpox. Monkeypox begins with fever, headache, muscle aches, and exhaustion. The main difference between symptoms of smallpox and monkeypox is that monkeypox causes lymph nodes to swell (lymphadenopathy) while smallpox does not. The incubation period (time from infection to symptoms) for monkeypox is usually 7−14 days but can range from 5−21 days.Within 1 to 3 days (sometimes longer) after the appearance of fever, the patient develops a rash, often beginning on the face then spreading to other parts of the body.Lesions progress through the following stages before falling off: macules, papules, vesicles, pustules, scabs.The illness typically lasts for 2−4 weeks. In Africa, monkeypox has been shown to cause death in as many as 1 in 10 persons who contract the disease.”

The disease can be spread easily through the human-to-human contact but it is not so infectious as smallpox. One person can be infected by body fluids of the sick person or by touching the contaminated objects. This is very important when it comes to the culture of home care and family sheltering of the infected people. In Africa, the absence of epidemiological standards and the low level of outbreak awareness cause the fast chain of transmission from one individual to another. There is also the distinction between two types of this virus, which must be also taken into consideration when we debate the current outbreaks circles. The virus can develop the Central African aggressive  style or the West African milder style. Ebola virus has the same categorization :Ebola Sudan, Ebola Zair and Ebola Reston. Nobody believes that Ebola had capacity to be spread so far away but it has happened. That’s why  we must overrate the monkeypox rather than to underrate because the ideas about this virus as an indicator of the pandemics in the close future sounds like a science fiction which doesnt mean it could somehow happen. The West African monkeypox hit the USA back in 2003, with 47 confirmed cases across the 6 states: Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The viral hurricane was initiated by the first  contact with infected prairie dogs sold as a pet:“On June 11, 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a joint order in response to the first reported outbreak of monkeypox in the United States. Specifically, CDC prohibited the importation of all African rodents into the United States and FDA banned the sale, distribution, transport, or release into the environment of prairie dogs and six specific genera of African rodents within the United States.”

Monkeypox virus cant be cured with the concrete medical  treatment but the accent is on the prevention more than on sanitation. There is smallpox vaccine, antivirals, and vaccinia immune globulin (VIG) what  can be used but only in developed countries and for potential outbreaks but in the poor societies, the lack of medical help and chemical means makes things being worse and the outbreaks being longer and with more victims. Above all, the African population is facing not only with the  poverty and failed medical system but with the fact they are forgotten by the rest of the world when it comes to the epidemiological crisis. The world is ready to intervene only when pathogen is ready to jump on the American or European continent. Meanwhile, the developed high tech world is counting money for rich pharmacological research and the developing miserable world is counting its dead people, fallen for the freedom of fight against nature and its cruel boomerang.