Amid the global outbreak of mpox, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report suggests that, unlike Covid-19, the mpox virus (earlier known as monkeypox), doesn’t easily spread through the air.
Mpox, which is caused by the Monkeypox virus ( a zoonotic virus belonging to the Orthopoxvirus genus), can spread from person to person mainly through close contact skin-to-skin.
This includes touching or sex and mouth-to-mouth, or mouth-to-skin contact (such as kissing), and can also include being face-to-face with someone who has mpox (such as talking or breathing close to one another, which can generate infectious respiratory particles).
The CDC’s ‘Morbidity and Mortality’ weekly report included a study on 113 persons with mpox who travelled on 221 flights during 2021-22.
The results showed that none of the 1,046 passenger contacts got infected.
The findings suggest that “travelling on a flight with a person with mpox does not appear to constitute an exposure risk or warrant routine contact tracing activities.”
Though the WHO does reveal that face-to-face contact with someone who has mpox could spread, but it is less likely.
During the 2022 mpox outbreak, the virus was mainly transmitted through sexual contact.
However, more research is needed on how mpox spreads during outbreaks in different settings and under different conditions, say WHO researchers.
The main symptom of mpox is skin rash that develop into pus-filled lesions, which may last for two to four weeks.
Other symptoms include fever, headache, body aches, sore throat and cough, and lymphadenopathy (swollen lymph nodes).
People with mpox are considered infectious until all their lesions have crusted over, the scabs have fallen off and a new layer of skin has formed underneath, and all the lesions on the eyes and in the body (in the mouth, throat, eyes, vagina and anus) have healed too.
The skin rash can vary depending on the variant of mpox: clade Ib and clade II.
Clade Ib, the new strain that prompted WHO to make it a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), is more severe and dangerous than clade II.