What do experts say about M-POX in 2024?
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00:00Hi, I'm Sarah McCann. I'm a health reporter and today I am joined by Professor Paul Panzer,
00:06the Professor of Medicine from the University of East Anglia. Thank you so much for joining
00:09us today to talk about mPox. Please, could you explain to us first, what is mPox?
00:16It's a similar virus to smallpox, but it doesn't cause the really severe disease
00:22that we saw with smallpox. Early on, when we knew about mPox, it was that we were concerned that it
00:29was actually smallpox that we were seeing. So that's why we were initially concerned about
00:36the virus. Since the 1960s, when smallpox was effectively eradicated, mPox causes a disease
00:46with an incubation period of about 10 days to two weeks, usually, sometimes a bit longer,
00:52sometimes a bit shorter. It starts off in a very non-specific way. It could be anything,
00:57just generally feeling well, maybe have a fever. But the characteristics of the disease are these
01:05skin blisters that look exactly like smallpox blisters, but these days are similar to chicken
01:15pox blisters. For most people, it's a fairly relatively mild infection that they recover
01:23from on their own record in a few days. Some people go on to develop an inflammation of the
01:29brain encephalitis, and some ultimately die of the infection. The death rate in Congo, where this new
01:41variant comes from, is about three to four percent. But with good healthcare, that can be reduced
01:48substantially. How is mPox spread? Is it quite contagious? Right, yeah. There are four different
01:56variants, or clades, as we call them. Clade 1 is generally based around Central Africa, from
02:05predominantly the Democratic Republic of Congo. And clade 2 is predominantly around West Africa,
02:14Nigeria, and neighboring countries. And each clade has a 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B. The 1A and 2A
02:24is almost entirely acquired from contact with animals, and usually affects primarily children.
02:36The clade B, which is the one that we're concerned about, originated from animals,
02:45but now is spreading person to person through sexual and intimate contact. And we saw this in
02:522022 with clade 2B, and that spread predominantly in sexual networks, and that caused a big outbreak
03:04in many countries around the world. So the concern with the new variant, the clade 1B,
03:12is that it could do just that. So if you catch a clade 1 variant, you're more likely to die
03:20compared to if you catch a clade 2 variant. Now, the issue is, we already know that this infection
03:30has spread out of Africa. There's been a case in Sweden, and there's been a case in Pakistan,
03:36and you can be pretty sure that there are cases already in other countries around
03:41the world and other countries in Europe. The question, though, is, will that become a problem
03:49in these other countries? I think we are in a different place now to where we were in 2022.
03:56The first thing is that the 2022 epidemic spread primarily in people who were part of sexual
04:08networks with very many partners. And that infection is still here. It's been increasing
04:17in numbers over the year. In July, we saw quite a jump in the number of cases.
04:25From the clade 2 infections, but still way below what they were in 2022.
04:36Now, the reason why I'm not convinced that the new clade will spread dramatically in this
04:45population is that, first of all, a lot of people in that group, many people in that group, will
04:53have actually already had the infection. And if you get one clade, you're immune,
04:59not completely immune, but you have a strong immunity to other clades of mpox. And even if
05:07you didn't, many people in that group will have actually had vaccine back two years ago.
05:15The concern, though, always, as well, is what is the potential for it spreading outside of
05:20these groups.