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Unveiling the Arcane of an Elusive Virus from the Heart of the African Continent: The Monkeypox

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Human Viruses: Diseases, Treatments and Vaccines

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Abstract

Monkeypox is a zoonotic disease caused by the monkeypox virus (MPXV) of the same Poxiviridae family and the same genus Orthopoxvirus than the close related smallpox virus. MPXV affects humans and animals frequently living in the tropical rainforest mostly in Central and West Africa. Human monkeypox clinical signs are mimicking those of smallpox lesions and need a comprehensive differential diagnostic with others poxvirus infection. MPXV can infect a wide range of mammalian species from pan-geographical to local distribution. The frequency and geographic spread of human MPX cases have increased in recent years with occurrence of outbreaks outside of Africa (USA, UK, Israel, and Singapore). Human-to-human transmission of MPX is increasingly reported especially in immunocompromised people. In addition, there is a more and more active circulation of MPXV often encountered among travelers visiting known endemic areas. This set, and this low-noise extension of MPXV, favors an epidemic risk not only at regional but also international level. This could potentially lead to a pandemic threat as it happens by the past, with its very close parent of smallpox virus (i.e. Variola) and, in another context but also from a single zoonotic source, with the SARS-Cov-2 (i.e. COVID-19) today.

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Acknowledgements

This manuscript has been developed with some unpublished material of BAM doctoral thesis done at the University of _Bourgogne Franche-Comté and Kinshasa University, therefore we would like to thanks all directors and supervisors of the thesis: Jean-Jacques Muyembe, Frédéric Mauny, Didier Bompangue and Pascal Handschumacher. As well as extending my warm acknowledgement to the members of the Research and Training Unit on the Ecology and Control of Infectious Diseases of the University of Kinshasa and, all the members of the Clinical Methodology Center of Teaching Hospital Center of Besançon, France, for their constant support. The authors thank also Dr Placide Mbala for providing the clinical photographs of monkeypox patients in Sankuru in DRC, and the patients who gave permission to have the photos taken.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, Microbiology Department, Kinshasa University, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

    Bien-Aimé M. Mandja

  2. Chrono-Environment Laboratory, UMR 6249 CNRS, Bourgogne Franche-Comté, University Besançon, Besançon, France

    Bien-Aimé M. Mandja

  3. Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Division of Biomedical Graduate Research Organization, Georgetown University, School of Medicine, Washington, DC, 20057, USA

    Jean-Paul Gonzalez

  4. Advisory Board, Centaurus Biotech LLC, Vienna, VA, 22182, USA

    Jean-Paul Gonzalez

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  1. Bien-Aimé M. Mandja
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  2. Jean-Paul Gonzalez
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  1. Wollaton, Nottingham, UK

    Shamim I. Ahmad

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Mandja, BA.M., Gonzalez, JP. (2021). Unveiling the Arcane of an Elusive Virus from the Heart of the African Continent: The Monkeypox. In: Ahmad, S.I. (eds) Human Viruses: Diseases, Treatments and Vaccines . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71165-8_22

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