Factors affecting the likelihood of monkeypox's emergence and spread in the post-smallpox era.

Abstract

In 1980, the World Health Assembly announced that smallpox had been successfully eradicated as a disease of humans. The disease clinically and immunologically most similar to smallpox is monkeypox, a zoonosis endemic to moist forested regions in West and Central Africa. Smallpox vaccine provided protection against both infections. Monkeypox virus is a less efficient human pathogen than the agent of smallpox, but absent smallpox and the population-wide immunity engendered during eradication efforts, could monkeypox now gain a foothold in human communities? We discuss possible ecologic and epidemiologic limitations that could impede monkeypox's emergence as a significant pathogen of humans, and evaluate whether genetic constrains are sufficient to diminish monkeypox virus' capacity for enhanced specificity as a parasite of humans.

• Authors: Mary G Reynolds, Darin S Carroll, Kevin L Karem
• Journal: Current opinion in virology (Curr Opin Virol) Vol. 2 Issue 3 Pg. 335-43 (Jun 2012) ISSN: 1879-6265 [Electronic] Netherlands
• PMID: 22709519 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Review)
• Copyright: Published by Elsevier B.V.

Topics

• Africa, Central (epidemiology)
• Africa, Western (epidemiology)
• Animals
• Ecosystem
• Humans
• Monkeypox (epidemiology, prevention & control, transmission)
• Monkeypox virus (immunology, pathogenicity)
• Risk Assessment
• Zoonoses (transmission)