Posted on Jul 26, 2022
The mystery virus that protects against monkeypox
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A At the turn of the 19th Century, a bizarre medical panic swept across London. Informative pamphlets were distributed. Alarmist books were authored. Dubious treatments emerged. The public was warned, en masse, that it was in peril – at urgent risk of… morphing into cow-humans.
A small group of controversial doctors had been whipping up concerns about a pioneering medical procedure, which included taking a virus thought to infect cattle and using it to protect people against its cousin, smallpox.
The technique was named "vaccination", after the Latin "vaccinus", meaning "of a cow" – and the early evidence suggested that it was extraordinarily effective, protecting 95% of people from an infection which usually killed around 30% of its victims and permanently disfigured most of the rest. There was even an early hope that it might eventually vanquish the disease forever.
A small group of controversial doctors had been whipping up concerns about a pioneering medical procedure, which included taking a virus thought to infect cattle and using it to protect people against its cousin, smallpox.
The technique was named "vaccination", after the Latin "vaccinus", meaning "of a cow" – and the early evidence suggested that it was extraordinarily effective, protecting 95% of people from an infection which usually killed around 30% of its victims and permanently disfigured most of the rest. There was even an early hope that it might eventually vanquish the disease forever.
The mystery virus that protects against monkeypox
Posted from bbc.com
Medical
Health
World History
London
Edited 2 y ago
Posted 2 y ago
Responses: 4
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Wonder what the orange boy's pet name for this disease is. Who else can he alienate and denigrate?
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SFC (Join to see)
He doesn't need to since many ignorant people and some mainstream media outlets are trying to make it out to be a "gay" disease that only affects homosexuals.
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Today people are most likely to catch cowpox from rats, or cats who pick it up from rodents in the wild – in one unusual case, it was acquired from a circus elephant. Most infections are mild, producing pox lesions on the hands or face, and unlike monkeypox they aren't yet being spread from person-to-person.
But there have been fatalities. And as with monkeypox, the rise in cases has been linked to the end of widespread smallpox vaccination. Some experts have even gone so far as to describe cowpox as an emerging health threat.
So, vaccinia is still very much in demand. But will we ever know where humanity's favourite poxvirus came from? Esparza is sceptical. "We still have more questions than answers," he says, though he hints that he and his colleagues have made some progress – and will be releasing more tantalising details about the mystery in the coming months.
Whatever it's made from, without the smallpox vaccine, there's little doubt that the world would be a radically different place – still grappling with an ancient plague that had been disfiguring and killing people for millennia. And just as in the early 19th Century, we have far more to fear from avoiding inoculation, than we do from turning into human-cows"...
..."Today people are most likely to catch cowpox from rats, or cats who pick it up from rodents in the wild – in one unusual case, it was acquired from a circus elephant. Most infections are mild, producing pox lesions on the hands or face, and unlike monkeypox they aren't yet being spread from person-to-person.
But there have been fatalities. And as with monkeypox, the rise in cases has been linked to the end of widespread smallpox vaccination. Some experts have even gone so far as to describe cowpox as an emerging health threat.
So, vaccinia is still very much in demand. But will we ever know where humanity's favourite poxvirus came from? Esparza is sceptical. "We still have more questions than answers," he says, though he hints that he and his colleagues have made some progress – and will be releasing more tantalising details about the mystery in the coming months.
Whatever it's made from, without the smallpox vaccine, there's little doubt that the world would be a radically different place – still grappling with an ancient plague that had been disfiguring and killing people for millennia. And just as in the early 19th Century, we have far more to fear from avoiding inoculation, than we do from turning into human-cows"...
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