Monkeypox: Does it now have to be vaccinated across the board?
Created: 05/31/2022, 19:38
Is monkeypox the new Corona?
No, say experts.
A nationwide vaccination is probably not necessary, but for some it could be useful.
© IMAGO/Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto
Hardly anyone in Germany is vaccinated against smallpox, but a suitable vaccine has been available since 2013.
How useful is it to use this across the board in the fight against monkeypox?
Munich – The corona virus has made us cautious about infectious diseases.
The current cases of monkeypox remind some people of the beginning of the corona pandemic.
But experts give the all-clear.
According to the current state of knowledge, the monkeypox virus (MPXV) is comparatively harmless and the spread will apparently remain within manageable limits.
There is already a smallpox vaccine - should it be used across the board now?
Monkey pox: 30 cases in Germany - why are we actually talking about it?
Monkeypox is a viral disease related to the classic smallpox viruses.
In fact, rodents in particular transmit the disease to humans.
In close contact, human-to-human transmission is also possible, as in the current cases in Germany.
The disease was diagnosed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as early as 1970.
There are two reasons why the current cases of monkeypox still make it into the news: Up until the spring of 2022, the disease was very sporadic outside of West and Central African countries.
Now more and more cases are becoming known from all over the world.
In addition, an illness has so far usually been associated with travel to the relevant regions.
According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), what is special about the current cases is that the patients in Germany had not previously traveled to countries in Africa where monkeypox is endemic.
The infection was therefore person-to-person.
Monkeypox: These groups of people are at risk
The disease course of monkeypox is usually mild.
Those who have been vaccinated against smallpox even have some immunity to MPXV.
However, the RKI considers it comparatively unlikely that this will be the case in younger people.
Eventually, smallpox vaccination was phased out worldwide after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared smallpox the first human disease to be eradicated in 1980.
According to current knowledge, monkeypox is only dangerous for newborns, children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with underlying immune deficiencies.
Healthcare workers are also at risk as they can be exposed to the virus for long periods of time.
In severe individual cases, the monkeypox virus can lead to pneumonia, eye and skin infections or even death.
Monkeypox: What speaks for a nationwide vaccination - and what against it
According to current knowledge, it is only really dangerous for individual groups of people.
Experts therefore currently do not believe that nationwide vaccination makes sense.
Contact tracking and quarantine should be enough to stop the chain of infection.
According to Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD), vaccination concepts are currently being prepared - but only for people in the vicinity of infected people.
The required vaccine is expected in the first half of June.
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The vaccine is called Imvanex and has been approved as a smallpox vaccine in the European Union since 2013.
According to the RKI, vaccination may be conceivable for certain contact persons.
The vaccine can still ward off the disease four days after someone has come into contact with the virus, according to the US health authority CDC.
Vaccination should also make the course milder and the risk of infecting others should also decrease.
At present, however, a monkeypox vaccination is a doctor's individual decision that can be made for people who are particularly at risk.
According to the current state of knowledge, there will be no nationwide vaccination.
Monkeypox: Why a new pandemic is not happening now - but is becoming more likely in the future
The monkeypox virus is a DNA virus, while the coronavirus is an RNA virus.
DNA viruses have significantly larger genomes, making them more stable.
"When the DNA viruses multiply, fewer mutations occur, so they are very stable," explained Stephan Aberle, virologist at Med-Uni Vienna, to the
standard
.
Since the virus has more repair mechanisms, new variants cannot form as quickly as with Corona, Aberle continues.
The RKI currently estimates the risk of monkeypox to the general public in Germany to be low.
Just like Health Minister Lauterbach.
He does not believe that monkeypox "poses a threat in the sense of a pandemic," said the health expert, who is actually known as the eternal admonisher.
An all-clear from him is therefore particularly important.
From the point of view of the world medical director, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, the monkeypox issue is "soon to be settled." of the resulting viral diseases will continue to rise," warned the world medical director.
Climate change is contributing to the fact that animals have less and less habitat available - and zoonosis is becoming more likely.
