Today, government scientists asserted that patients with monkeypox can transmit the virus up to four days before symptoms manifest.
Experts from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) now estimate that more than half of the infections during the summer outbreak, which primarily affected homosexual and bisexual males, were transmitted in this manner.
In the first evidence of its kind, researchers concluded that pre-symptomatic transmission may be significantly more “substantial” than previously believed.
It raises ‘serious’ issues about current tactics to limit the virus that causes rashes, according to infectious disease specialists.
Since its peak in the summer, the spread of monkeypox in Britain, which prompted predictions of a new pandemic, has slowed. Before this year, instances were often observed primarily in West Africa.
Since it began in May, there have been 3,701 reported cases. Similar outbreaks appeared in western Europe and the United States.
Although the virus can infect anyone, the vast majority of infections have occurred in gay and bisexual men.
Cases peaked at more than 60 per day in mid-July but subsequently decreased to an average of less than 15 per day in early September.
Experts attribute the decline to the United Kingdom’s vaccine plan, which resulted in the immunization of approximately 50,000 gay and bisexual males and at-risk healthcare workers.
In September, second doses of the smallpox vaccination were administered to British citizens at the highest risk for monkeypox.
All intimate contacts of patients with monkeypox are urged to isolate themselves for up to 21 days.
The British Medical Journal study comprised 2,746 individuals who tested positive for monkeypox in the United Kingdom.
The average age of the patients was 37.8 years, and 95 percent were gay or bisexual men. Using normal surveillance and contact tracing surveys, they were located.
Researchers analyzed the time between the onset of the first patient’s symptoms and the onset of symptoms in a known contact.
In addition, they examined the incubation period, which is the time between exposure to the virus and the development of symptoms.
The team discovered that it could take up to 7.8 days for symptoms to manifest following exposure.
However, many contacts were infected before the onset of symptoms in the initial case.
Four days was the maximum time that transmission was discovered before symptoms appeared, they wrote in the journal.
According to independent experts, the results are “convincing” and raise “important questions.”
Dr. Boghuma Kabisen Titanji, assistant professor of medicine at Emory University in Atlanta, inquired, “What proportion of patients are asymptomatic, and to what extent do these instances seed new transmission chains?” These are serious questions requiring immediate answers.
