Professor David Heymann, an expert on infectious disease epidemiology at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: ‘What seems to be happening now is that it has got into the population as a sexual form, as a genital form, and is being spread as are sexually transmitted infections, which has amplified its transmission around the world.
He said close contact was the key transmission route, as lesions typical of the disease are very infectious.For example, parents caring for sick children are at risk, as are health workers, which is why some countries have started inoculating teams treating monkeypox patients using vaccines for smallpox, a related virus.Many of the current cases have been identified at sexual health clinics.
https://nextstrain.org/…/babar…/cov/monkeypoxvirus-small
This shows info about the changes in Monkeypox virus. I don’t understand if this is significant, but there are 4 samples that look to have a large number of changes compared with the rest of the samples. I don’t know how strongly this shows if they are lab produced or if this much variation could be naturally occurring.
Perhaps we will have a good evaluation from somebody who understands this.
Related to smallpox…Despite international success in eradicating smallpox, the variola virus remains a hazardous, Category A (CDC category) biological warfare agent. During World War II, the US and UK considered weaponizing smallpox, but with smallpox vaccines readily available, decided smallpox would be ineffective as a weapon.
During the Cold War, in 1974, the Soviet Union initiated Biopreparat, a civilian pharmaceutical company, as a front for the Soviet biological weapons program. Vladimir Pasechnik, a Soviet microbiologist who defected in 1989, provided information on the Soviet development of India 67 or India 1, a particularly virulent strain of smallpox, as a biological weapon. Scientists used embryonic chicken eggs to cultivate large amounts of smallpox virus. In addition, Dr. Ken Alibek (formerly Kanatjan Alikbekov), the former First Deputy Director of Biopreparat, reported the Soviet development of chimera viruses by inserting genetic material from other viruses into smallpox.
Reports suggested that the North Korean biological weapons program conducted research on smallpox as a possible biological agent.
Widespread fears remain that the smallpox virus can be used as a weapon of bioterrorism as populations are no longer vaccinated against the virus.
So basically, this monkey-pox is only upon NATO or NATO affiliated countries. By looking at that map.
Sleep well, children