[A photo shows a cell of a disease, Photo Credit to Pixabay]

On August 22nd, 2024, there was an alert of the spread of mpox, also known as monkeypox, in Africa and people questioned if this was another form of Covid-19.

As mpox is unknown by many people, there are many questions that are unanswered.

People wonder whether it is contagious, if it is deadly, and they are nervous and frightened that another era of Covid-19 will emerge.

Dr. Jake Dunning, a scientist and doctor of mpox, claimed that we must not think of a new virus or disease to be Covid-19 and have horrors about going into similar lockdowns.

He further stated , “I’m getting a little bit irked and twitchy about people just focusing on what happened in 2022 and thinking that the same will happen.”

Hence, people should be rest assured and wait to see how the disease spreads.

These mpox types are classified into three different groups and are labeled as "clade".

Clade 1 is the most infectious disease, especially in the west and north of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as it has been spreading for more than one decade.

This is mostly caused by consuming bushmeat which is infected wildlife; people become sick after consuming it and this sickness can spread to other people who come into contact.

Clade 1b is another strand of mpox and this disease spread in the east of the DRC.

It was mainly spread due to drivers in trucking routes who had intercourse with sex workers, spreading the virus quickly among people.

This disease can even spread to children who come in contact.

Clade 2 is another type of the virus, which had an outbreak that swirled around the world in 2022, and it also has a close connection to sex, like Clade 1b.

Unlike clade 1b, clade 2 was related to sex in that it involved gay, bisexual, or other men in male communities.

Around 98.6% of patients who contracted clade 2 types of the virus were revealed to be men in the UK.

Among these three different types of the virus, Clade 1b is known to be the most deadly virus as it spreads to unaffected countries such as Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda.

The origin of Clade 1b is a mining city in Kamituga in the Congolese province of South Kivu.

Within the mining city, there were many sex businesses where numerous workers from the mining city were affected and as they moved out of the city, they passed the virus to people in other cities.

As it spread to other cities, the virus also affected children as it was linked to miscarriages.

It has been revealed that smallpox immunization is somewhat effective in preventing the disease.

Thus, children who have received smallpox immunization have an immune system that protects them from mpox.

Dr Dunning revealed that vaccines should be widely adopted, especially in Africa since it was the heart of the outbreak.

He claimed that tools such as syringes should not be shared to prevent mpox as it can bring much more severe problems.

Hence, the greatest win will be to control outbreaks at their place of origin.