[사진 출처 = 연합뉴스]This year, monkey pox has killed nine people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and one in Nigeria.
According to the Associated Press on the 30th (local time), Dr Aimee Alongo, director of health in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Sankuru Province, said that 465 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo and nine people have died.
Dr. Arongo explained that the reason why the number of confirmed cases of monkey pox continues is because the residents here consume the carcasses of monkeys and rodents.
From the forest, residents bring carcasses of monkeys, bats and rodents, he fears, as ‘monkey pox carriers’.
There have been deaths in Nigeria. The day before, the Nigeria Center for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) announced that 66 suspected cases of monkey pox had been reported so far this year, and 21 confirmed cases, of which one patient with an underlying disease died.
The NCDC said the deceased was a 40-year-old with underlying medical conditions and was taking immunosuppressive drugs.
Monkeypox, which had only occurred in some countries in West and Central Africa, has spread worldwide, including Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Australia, since the first case was reported in the UK on the 7th.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of the 26th of last month, 257 confirmed cases were reported in 23 countries outside of endemic diseases, and no deaths were reported.
“We don’t know, but we don’t think so,” said Rosamund Lewis, director of the WHO’s emergency response program, smallpox, when asked if monkeypox could develop into a pandemic. He added, “Currently, I’m not worried about the global fan demise.”
However, Lewis admitted that there was not enough information about monkeypox infection.
It is still unclear to what extent the virus has spread, whether there are asymptomatic infections, and whether airborne transmission is possible, like measles or novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).
It is known that the existing smallpox vaccine is 85% effective against monkeypox, a smallpox virus. Accordingly, countries in non-endemic regions appear to be actively seeking smallpox vaccines.
However, some health experts point out that there is a possibility that monkeypox spreads easily because large-scale vaccination programs around the world were halted with the declaration of eradication of smallpox in 1980.
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