The monkeypox virus has officially made it to the ACT after two confirmed cases were announced on Wednesday. What does this mean for the community and should there be concern?
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What is it and where has it come from?
Despite the surge in attention, monkeypox has been around for quite some time and was first identified in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Deakin University epidemiologist Catherine Bennett said it has tended to come from "zoonotic crossover" of people eating game and bushfoods in parts of Africa with a squirrel likely being the high-risk animal.
"The monkeypox name comes from the isolation of these laboratory monkeys in somewhere else in the 1970s ... that name has stuck since because that's the first animal they found it in," she said.
"We've had small clusters since and they tend to be very localised. For human-to-human transmission to happen, it has to be direct skin-to-skin contact."
Professor Bennett said it has "become quite endemic" over the last 10 years in parts of Africa and was almost "bound to happen" for someone to carry it over.
This latest cluster is assumed to have began from rave parties in Europe, which epidemiologist from University of South Australia Adrian Esterman said could be a concern for Australian cases.
"There's two sort of flavours of monkeypox as the Central African and West African. Central African is much more severe and you can have about 10 per cent of cases dying, West African is much less severe. Luckily, this current outbreak around the world is the West African variety," he said.
"The vast majority of people have been infected are men who have sex with men and it is thought that there have been a couple of huge rave parties in Europe where most of these infections got picked up."
What is the likelihood of catching the disease?
Relatively low. The main way the disease is caught is through direct skin-on-skin contact between one person with the virus transmitting it to someone else.
"You can catch it if someone happens to have the lesions in their throat, it can be picked up by very close contact like droplet spread," Professor Bennett said.
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"It tends to be household contacts or partners and sexual partners are particularly high-risk just because you have more physical contact, you often share bedding or clothing or other things that can all help transmit the virus."
Due to the virus likely being spread through a rave party, there is likely more risk to men engaging in sex with men.
"I hope that people don't see the gay community involvement adding to stigma. This is just one of those things that where the virus lands, that's the community it spreads in," Professor Bennett said.
"It's landed in a particular community that is going to be the most vulnerable and most of the contact happens with other people in the community."
What are the symptoms to look out for?
The initial symptoms can mimic feeling like the flu, but often develops to having lesions on parts of the body.
"What's usually described is you have flu like symptoms, you get a headache, fever and then you get a lesion. So if you get the headache or flu then you know to look for it, particularly if you're in a high risk group," Professor Bennett said.
"But now they're saying some people are getting the lesions without any other symptoms, the symptoms come later so that's a worry because even though it still has to be symptomatic before it's passed on, it might be quite a subtle symptom."
Professor Esterman also said symptoms can involve swollen lymph glands, headaches and fever.
"That then develops into a typical rash, which goes through several stages and eventually forms pustules. In some of these men, they found that they didn't go through that first light stage, they went straight to a rash which tended to come around the genital area," he said.
What happens if you catch it?
For most people who catch the virus, it is relatively mild and many fully recover within two to four weeks.
ACT Health said anyone with symptoms should stay home and phone their general practitioner to organise a telehealth appointment.
Professor Bennett recommended people get a diagnosis to know how to respond depending on individual medical history.
"It's worth having it checked out because even if nothing else, it'll be monitored and then you can get direct advice on what to do and when it's safe to resume normal activity," she said.
"Usually, those lesions completely heal over but you just want someone to be able to talk to you about what that looks like, how long it will take and how to safely manage your own infection and not put other people at risk."
How can you protect yourself?
The main method of protection for those worried about catching the virus is through vaccination, which Professor Esterman said is extremely effective.
"The thing is that we have got a vaccine for it, it's basically the smallpox vaccine and it works very well against monkeypox," he said. "It can either be given as a prophylactic so as to try and prevent at risk men from catching a monkeypox or it can actually be given as a treatment."
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