Why should monkey pox be avoided around pets?

Monkeypox does not affect primates.

Why should monkey pox be avoided around pets?

Monkeypox does not affect primates. His name was taken from an outbreak in Copenhagen's pet shop with monkeys in 1958. It underlines "Le Parisien". The truth is that the pathogen first appeared in rodents and was later identified in humans in 1970s. Recent cases of infection in hundreds of people have occurred, many of them young gay or bisexual men. This is a rare and unheard-of phenomenon. The World Health Organization is not concerned by the virus' low contagiousness between humans. However, there is another possibility that could change the game. It is called "retro-zoonosis".

This neologism consists of two words: "zoonosis", which refers to an infectious disease that is passed from animals and humans, and "reverse," which refers to the opposite. If the virus were to take the opposite route, and if it finds an animal reservoir, then "monkeypox” could become an endemic disease on European soil. This is already the case for Central and West Africa. This could make the virus more easily transmissible.

Health authorities are well aware of this phenomenon. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recommends that monkeypox suffers not mix with pets in a press release released Monday, May 23. "Any contact with mammalian pets and rodents (mice rats, mice, rats, hamsters guinea-pigs, squirrels) is prohibited. Due to the possibility of human-to–human transmission and interaction, it is best to avoid contact with rodents. The agency stated that the agency could not guarantee the safety of any animal. Even animals should be "ideally isolated in supervised areas" or "euthanized as an option if isolation and screening are not possible", the agency stated.

The virus could spread faster if it were to infect a large number of animals. The virus's low contagiousness from one person to another should slow down for now.

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