Smallpox monkeys: Gismondo, not serious but there is a lack of therapies

After the isolation of the virus "we can proceed with the research on new antiviral molecules", even if the monkeypox remains a disease "not serious, which does not threaten lethality except in very rare cases of fragile or immunocompromised people. they are targeted therapies ".

Maria Rita Gismondo, the director of the laboratory of clinical microbiology, virology and bio-emergency diagnostics of the Sacco hospital in Milan, told ANSA that yesterday she isolated the 'monkeypoxvirus', responsible for monkeypox currently present in Europe.

The symptoms, added Gismondo, "are headache, sore pustules. Someone had a high fever one or two days, others not".

But at the moment, even if "some antivirals have shown good activity, there is no molecule directed against this virus. Now we can test new ones that may be effective in preventing infection".

In any case, "we are not talking about the picture we remember of the human smallpox virus", it is often "a few pustules on the back, limbs or face that dry up and heal within a week".