First identified in humans in 1970, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the monkeypox virus was considered difficult to spread between humans. However, since the beginning of the year, an outbreak, mainly in Europe, has left the WHO (World Health Organization) on alert. Until the afternoon of this Monday (6), the entity had already confirmed 1,009 cases, with another 70 suspects – seven of them are being investigated in Brazil.
Scientists are still studying the characteristics of the disease, but, as with the Covid-19 pandemic, rumors are floating around the internet. False theories say, for example, that monkeypox is a disease “caused by vaccines” and that Spanish authorities would have been aware of the problem before it arose.
Check out expert responses to this and other false theories.
Monkeypox and the AstraZeneca vaccine
Posts shared on social media since May suggest that monkeypox would be related to the anti-Covid vaccine produced by Oxford/AstraZeneca, since among its components there is a chimpanzee adenovirus. The claim is a fallacy, according to experts.
This adenovirus has been genetically modified so that it cannot reproduce in the human body, and it also belongs to a different family from the virus that causes monkeypox.
Experts interviewed by AFP insist there is no link between the two pathogens.
The disease got its name (“monkeypox”) because it was first detected in monkeys in 1958.
“However, monkeys are not the hosts. It is most likely that in Africa, the continent where the virus originated, its sources are rodents,” Professor Flávio Guimarães da Fonseca, president of the Brazilian Society of Virology, told AFP.
The adenovirus is used in the vaccine as a vector to carry genetic instructions to the vaccinated’s cells, which then produce their own immune response against Covid.
Like other “viral vector” vaccines, the adenovirus is unable to contaminate the vaccinated person’s body.
Smallpox in Spain
A message on Telegram questioned why the Spanish government “purchased” two million doses of the smallpox vaccine in 2019. According to the publication, these vaccines prove that the authorities knew that cases would appear.
Experts explain that the disease has been eradicated, but their virus has not. They also say that it is normal for a country like Spain to have strategic reserves of the immunizing agent.
Doctor Jaime Jesús Pérez, spokesperson for the Spanish Association of Vaccinology (AEV), told AFP that “smallpox is an eradicated disease, but its virus still exists, both in the United States and Russia, in maximum security laboratories.” .
The disease has been considered eradicated since 1979 thanks to vaccination. Since 1984, the general population has not been immunized.
the diagnosis
Other social media posts mocked the supposedly “rapid” development of PCR tests to detect the monkeypox virus and warned of “false positives, as with Covid”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) explains that the most appropriate way to diagnose the disease, in addition to the clinic, is a PCR test. This has been the protocol for years, long before the Covid-19 pandemic.
The PCR test “is based on the development of molecules that only recognize the genetic sequencing of this microorganism,” Álvaro Fajardo, a doctor in biological sciences and researcher at the Laboratory of Molecular Virology (LVM) at the Uruguayan nuclear research center, told AFP. .
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