Scientists in the United Kingdom predicted monkey box disease in 1988, they said. At that time a scientific report was published “Over time, the average size and duration of monkey box infections will increase.”
At the time, monkeys were so rare that health workers discovered only a few cases in West and Central Africa.
People became almost exclusively infected with rodents, and then the virus spread only to a small number of people.
But according to American Public Radio, scientists are “far-sighted.”NPRThey warn that these sporadic cases will increase and spread geographically over time.
“Every paper on the past eruptions of the monkey box, there is always a warning about how we should prepare for more eruptions in the future,” Bokoma Detonji, an epidemiologist at Emory University, told U.S. Radio. “This prediction has already been proven.”
5 thousand from 50 cases!
In the 1990s, there were only about 50 monkeys a year in West and Central Africa, but since then it has doubled.
By 2020, there may be more than 5,000 cases Scientists say.
Now, in 2022, the world is facing the first international outbreak of monkey flu 450 cases in about 20 countries.
Many scientists believe that no further cases have been detected, and that monkeys are more likely to spread the virus to previously infected communities.
But how did scientists in London know in 1988 that the number of monkey infections would rise in the future?
Smallpox is one of the deadliest diseases in human history, killing up to 30 percent of those infected with the highly contagious virus.
By comparison, today’s version of the monkey box kills less than 1 percent of victims.
Ann Ramon, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the NPR that “we now see the greatest achievement in public health, doubling our ability to eradicate gonorrhea.”
“So the monkey, in all its relapses, is much less dangerous than the previous gigantic disease,” he added.
Through a massive vaccination campaign, the world officially eradicated measles in the 1980s, saving millions of lives each year.
But as Remon explains, the end of greatness opened the door to the monkey box, perhaps with repercussions around the world.
“Of course, we’ll see other viruses emerge to fill the void, and that’s what we see today,” he says.
Historical data
According to Joe Walker, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, in the 1970s, people all over the world had some immunity to monkey flu, where most people were vaccinated against smallpox or survived.
Smallpox is a very old disease. Years ago, ”Walker says.
But in the late 1970s, the world stopped vaccinating against smallpox because the number of infections had dropped, so over the past four decades, our immunity has waned, making it easier for the monkey box to spread again.
“Over time, new babies were born, they were not vaccinated, they did not get small, and many older people who were vaccinated against measles died or became infected, so our immunity is weakened,” Walker stressed.
As a result, the world’s population now has the lowest immunity to monkey flu. “We’re at a point where the human immunity to monkey flu is very low for thousands of years,” Walker said.
So the eruption that was small in West Africa in the 1990s is huge today.
As the immunity of the population does not rise significantly in the future, the international spread of the monkey box will become more common over time.
The monkey box vaccine is currently available, and vaccination of those who have been in contact with victims can help stop the spread quickly.
Nevertheless, according to Raymond, scientists are concerned that the virus may have a permanent presence in Europe or North America.
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