The proposal of the director of the San Martino Infectious Diseases Clinic in Genoa. “Infection anything but mild”
With the increase in cases of monkeypox, detected and disseminated by the punctual bulletin of the Ministry of Health, concerns about this new virus grow. With about 25 cases more than last Friday, August 19, cases in Italy settle at 714. With the confirmation that the virus spreads more in men – about 704 men and 10 women are infected -, the regions in which this is more present are Lombardy, with 308 cases, followed by Lazio (128), Emilia Romagna (73) and Veneto (48). With an average age of about 37 years, and a range from 14 to 71, 190 of the 714 cases are infections linked to travel abroad.
Bassetti’s words
read also
Smallpox monkeys: in Italy 714 cases, 52 more in a week
At the forefront since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the infectious disease specialist Matteo Bassetti immediately intervened expressing caution also towards the new monkeypox. Following the death of the Italian carabiniere in Cuba, the director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of San Martino in Genoa stressed the need to quickly vaccinate all young homosexual men. “I have been saying since May that it is a far from mild infection. When the numbers grow so violently, there can be serious and even fatal cases. The only way to protect ourselves is prevention, and vaccination to be given immediately to young homosexual men between 18 and 45 years old “.
Spallanzani’s work
deepening
Monkeypox, 50-year-old Italian tourist died in Cuba
On the other hand, the opinion of Francesco Vaia, director of Spallanzani in Rome, was different, who showed more confidence in the virus, even in the face of the work of its structure. “The news of the first death among Italian citizens infected with monkeypox, one of our compatriots who died in Cuba, should not alarm the population. Except in exceptional cases, the disease progresses in a benign way, without serious complications, with healing occurring after two or three weeks. In the face of over 42,000 cases reported in non-endemic countries, i.e. outside Central and West Africa, there were only 5 deaths, equal to a lethality of 1.2 per 10,000. The disease today affects only population groups, and we have a vaccine, which is the third generation smallpox vaccine (MVA-BN), which has a high protection capacity (at least 85%) from the disease. At Spallanzani, the Lazio Region Vaccination Center, we have already vaccinated more than 500 people at risk of monkeypox infection and many more will be vaccinated in the coming weeks. Also in our Institute we are conducting studies on the immunological memory of people who were vaccinated against smallpox at the time. Preliminary data indicate that over 90% of people who were vaccinated over 40 years ago for smallpox have antibodies that react with the monkeypox virus, sometimes even in high quantities. “
What is Monkeypox
read also
Smallpox monkeys, vaccine: green light Ema with intradermal injection
Vaia invites the recall for smallpox, of which only one dose is sufficient in cases where the vaccine has already been done previously. But what do we know about monkeypox? In Italy it was isolated for the first time in Milan, in the laboratory of clinical microbiology, virology and diagnostics of bioemergences of the Sacco hospital. Also called monkeypox, we still know little about monkeypox, other than that it is transmitted very quickly and in an amplified way, like all viral diseases.