SEARCH
A great gift
for crisis deniers!
Humoring the Horror of the
Converging Emergencies
94 color pages
$24.99 now $15!
Or read FREE online!
Twitter
Ping this story
in social media:
del.icio.us
Digg
Newsvine
NowPublic
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
Humans with monkeypox virus cases rocket http://apocadocs.com/s.pl?1283890794
Human cases of an African virus related to smallpox have jumped 20-fold since 1986, far more than anyone suspected. The researchers who discovered the rise are calling for urgent studies to assess whether it could pose a global threat.
Monkeypox mostly infects rodents, and jumps to humans when they eat infected animals. Exposure to smallpox, or smallpox vaccine, immunises people to monkeypox, so there were fears that the virus might establish itself in people after smallpox was eliminated and vaccination stopped.... Now, Anne Rimoin of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues report that people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are 20 times more likely to catch monkeypox than they were in 1986.... "It might be more exposure to animals, but the sheer size of the increase suggests more transmission between humans," says Rimoin. This could be because, unlike in 1986, three-quarters of the people in the region have never been exposed to smallpox or its vaccine, leaving them susceptible.
Or the virus might have changed, she says. "Every infection is a chance for the virus to adapt to humans." Intriguingly, in 1999 and in Rimoin's recent sample, very few cases died, compared with 10 per cent in 1986.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
[Read more stories about:
deforestation, pandemic]
This item will appear in our PANIQuiz!
|
 |
|
New!:
| |
|
No reader quips yet -- be the first! | |
|
Got a PaniQuip?
|
|
|
We reserve the
right to reuse, remove, or refuse any entry.
| |
|
|
'Doc Jim says:
|
|
|
 |
|
Watch out!/It's the Monkey's Pawx.
|
|
|
|
|
Want to explore more?
Try the PaniCloud!
|
