Morgan West
September 2, 2010
2:10PM
Although smallpox was cured, a new relative of the virus seems to be causing problem in Africa. Monkeypox has had and extreme amount of new cases in the tropical parts of Africa. The side effect of the virus are a not a severe as smallpox, but monkeypox has the potential to blind, and even kill its victims. This outbreak has only been reported in small African boys. The most usual subjects of this disease are boys who are either monkey hunting or rodents. Before this time, animals transmitted monkeypox, but recently there seems to be significant amount of human transmission, which is very concerning. Over the past thirty years, there is a twenty percent increase in the amount of cases. Although the smallpox vaccine has an eighty percent rate to defend the body from the monkeypox virus, the government did not want to disperse the vaccine because of the side effects.
This is a very disturbing story that is developing in Africa. Teenage boys in have a huge chance of acquiring this virus, and without any change, these young boys could turn blind, or even die. One of the most disturbing parts is that the original smallpox vaccine that could possibly prevent monkeypox. Monkeypox is eighty percent preventable with this vaccine. Although the there are side effects, that could be because of the vaccine, they risk of not having it is much more severe. The African areas where this virus is most prevalent should be helped in order to help the sick children who already have it, and help stop it from continuing. I think that this could have been avoided, by giving the children the smallpox vaccine, but since they did not, they should fix it. If no assistance is given, then there could be a huge epidemic all over the world.
1 comment:
It's sad how much African nations suffer from different diseases each and everyday. Severe outbreaks like this will do nothing but set them back further. Now this disease monkeypox something I've never heard of has risen nearly 20% in the last 20 years. I hope some sort of action is taken before this disease start popping up in other parts of the world and we have a real pandemic on our hands.
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