As health authorities continue to strengthen in the face of predictions that infections will continue to soar, the monkeypox, already declared an international public health emergency, according to the World Health Organization (WHO)suppose a more concern among citizens.
A disease which, according to a study by researchers at Queen Mary University of London – in which 528 cases of infected people have been assessed between April and June in 16 different countries-, He has a certain profile, although, as experts point out, “everything can change”.
“You cannot predict what will happen in the near future. We are talking about a mild illnessbut if appropriate measures are not taken, contacts of infected persons are reported and preventive confinement is carried out, the situation will not be favorable“, Explain Juan José Badiola, director of the Center for Encephalopathies and Emerging Communicable Diseases at the University of Zaragoza.
Data from the study published in ‘The New England Journal of Medicine’ – one of the most recent and updated on this subject – shows that 98% of patients declare themselves to be homosexual, bisexual or have had sex with other men. Despite this, the General Nursing Council recalls that “the disease can be passed from person to person“. “It’s something we can’t stop repeating. Our role as nurses is to educate and train the population so that they know available information on the routes of transmission and on how to detect this disease early”.
This is a “fundamental” question for Juan José Badiola, who considers that “perhaps the disease was not taken seriously as it should be“. “We are talking about mild symptoms, that should be clear. But this does not mean that we must stop respecting sanitary measures. The option of forcing infected people to remain isolated could have been considered until the disease disappears or these characteristic pustules dry up”, insists the expert.
For Juan José Badiola, one of the issues for which Spain is the second country with the most infections This is because after the well-known cases of the UK, “began to know each other here while elsewhere the evolution of the disease had not begun”. Also keep in mind that there were situations conducive to the contagion of an evil that was not knownin addition to the complicated identification of contacts because there are those who, due to the characteristics of the disease, prefer not to do it, which is totally inadvisable if you want to end transmission, ”explains Juan José Badiola.
Who can be vaccinated against monkeypox and when should it be done?
In principle, vaccines were only indicated for direct contact with infected persons. Later, also for all people with risky practices: men who have had several male sexual partners. 5,300 arrived in Spain –Aragón has 52 doses that have not yet been administered-, which would not even be enough for direct contact with the infected.
“For the number of infections in our country and for their contacts, the number of vaccines we currently have is insufficient“, emphasizes the director of the Center for Encephalopathies and Emerging Communicable Diseases of the University of Zaragoza.
Recommended doses for infected people”when disease development is recent, for contacts and for vulnerable people“says Badiola. So far, in Spain, the latest generation of the Nordic Bavarian pharmaceutical company is inoculated, which requires two doses and full effect two weeks after the second injection.