First Brescia case of monkeypox: it is a man, whose age has not been disclosed, who has been in domestic isolation for about a week (and is fine for now). The infection was diagnosed by the Verona hospital: apparently he was infected abroad, recently returned to Italy from a trip. As reported by the Lombardy Region Welfare Department, the Brescia case is the eleventh in the region: another five were detected in the Ats Milano area, three in Brianza, one in Brescia, in the Pavese and in the Ats Val Padana (Cremona and Mantua). They are all in home isolation and in good health.
Genome sequenced
Good news on the research front. The entire genome of a monkeypox virus strain (monkeypox) taken from the swab of one of the patients returning from the Canary Islands was sequenced. The operation was successfully carried out at the Policlinico San Matteo in Pavia by a team composed of Piera D’Angelo, Guglielmo Ferrari, Stefano Gaiarsa, Federica Giardina, Stefania Paolucci, Antonio Piralla, Greta Petazzoni and Federica Zavaglio, led by Fausto Baldanti, director of Microbiology and Virology of the Pavia hospital.
As for the virus in Italy, the first case was diagnosed on 20 May. “People vaccinated against smallpox in the past – says the Ministry of Health – could be protected against monkeypox. However, it is unlikely that people under the age of 40 or 50 were vaccinated, as the vaccination against smallpox ended in 1980, when it was eradicated ”.
Smallpox vaccines
Evidence of a previous smallpox vaccination can usually be found as a scar on the upper arm. “At the moment – continues the Ministry – the original, first generation smallpox vaccines are no longer available to the public. Laboratory staff and healthcare workers may have received a smallpox vaccine more recently to protect them from exposure to orthopoxviruses in the workplace. An even more recent vaccine based on a modified attenuated virus (Ankara strain) was approved for the prevention of monkeypox in 2019 ”. But whose availability is limited.
Monkeypox
Monkeypox (also known as Mokeypox or Mpx) is a viral zoonosis (the virus is transmitted to humans by animals) with symptoms similar to those seen in the past in patients with smallpox, although clinically it is less severe. Smallpox, in fact, was transmitted more easily and was more lethal since about 30% of patients died. With the eradication of smallpox in 1980 and the subsequent cessation of vaccination, monkeypox emerged as the most important orthopoxvirus for public health.
For most people, however, MPX is a mild to moderate, self-limiting disease. Human monkeypox was first identified in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in a 9-year-old boy in a region where smallpox had been eliminated in 1968.