Monkey pox is spreading all over Europe. The first outbreak of the disease appeared several days ago in Great Britain. Now, authorities want health professionals to adopt the smallpox vaccine. There is a risk of infection that must be eliminated.

  1. Monkey pox is a serious threat. For this reason, UK authorities have decided to give vaccines to healthcare professionals to protect them from the virus
  2. According to the WHO, the smallpox vaccine is also effective against monkey pox. The effectiveness is 85 percent.
  3. The vaccine has already started to be administered to those willing, but the number of people who have taken the preparation so far has not been given
  4. You can find more such stories on the TvoiLokony home page

Monkey pox has already reached several European countries, incl. to Spain – a sanitary alert was raised in Madrid, fearing that an epidemic would break out in that country. He is also already in Portugal and Italy.

The virus began its journey through Europe in Great Britain, where the first outbreak of the disease appeared. A dozen or so days ago, one of the citizens returned from a trip from Nigeria, and it is in Africa that monkey pox has its habitat. The man is currently in an infectious diseases hospital in London.

There is a risk of infection. The decision was made to give vaccines

To ensure the safety of health care workers, the authorities decided to give them the smallpox vaccine.

Vaccination against smallpox protects to a large extent [from monkey pox – ed. ed.]

– claims prof. Krzysztof Pyrć from the Jagiellonian University, virologist, on Twitter.

According to WHO, the effectiveness of the smallpox vaccine in the case of monkey pox is as high as 85%.

There is no specific vaccine for monkey pox, but the smallpox vaccine offers some protection

– believes a spokesman for the UK Health Safety Agency, quoted by Reuters.

The risk of dying with monkey pox exists but is small

It is very important that health workers are not exposed to the disease. Although most symptoms disappear after a few weeks and the risk of death is small, it does exist. In the case of the monkey pox variety that we deal with in Europe, the mortality rate is around 1%. It is a West African variety. In the case of the Congolese, the risk is ten times higher.

Other symptoms, which are very unpleasant, are the characteristic blisters appearing all over the body, as well as high fever, chills and muscle aches, which are flu-like symptoms.

People who need the vaccine have had it

Continues a spokesman for the UK Health Safety Agency.

It is not known exactly how many people have taken the vaccine. According to the sciencemediacentre.org website, work is currently underway to create a preparation that would have the main application against monkey pox.

So far, nine cases of monkey pox infection have been confirmed in the UK.

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