What is the Difference Between Smallpox and Monkeypox?
Have you ever heard of monkeypox? How is it different smallpox and monkeypox? Monkeypox is a rare disease that is included in the viral zoonosis category. Viral zoonotic means a virus that can transmit from animals to humans.
Symptoms that appear in monkeypox sufferers are almost similar to the symptoms of smallpox, but are milder. The disease was first discovered in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa.
Since its discovery, most cases have occurred in Central Africa and West Africa. Apart from the African continent, this disease has only ever occurred in four other countries, namely the United States, Britain, Israel, and Singapore. The last reported case of monkeypox outside Africa was in May 2019 in Singapore.
However, WHO estimates that the disease has detected at least over 100 cases in 12 countries, which are not endemic to the monkeypox virus. Therefore, the emergence of this disease with an increasing number of cases, provokes everyone’s vigilance.
Monkeypox is a disease that is actually rare in humans. Infection with the monkeypox virus, which belongs to the Orthopoxvirus group causes this disease.
Although the name is similar, smallpox and monkeypox have significant differences.
Difference between Smallpox and Monkeypox
Mode of Transmission
Monkeypox is most often transmitted from animals to humans, although it is possible to occur from humans to humans. Transmission of the disease can occur through contact with blood, body fluids, or open wounds on the skin and mucosa of animals.
In addition, consumption of virus-infected meat can also be a risk factor for transmission of monkeypox.
Meanwhile, smallpox is very easily transmitted from human to human. The medium of transmission is through splashes of saliva or direct contact with the body of someone who infected.
Incubation Period
Monkeypox has an incubation period of 5–21 days. Meanwhile, the incubation period for smallpox lasts for 7-19 days. The incubation period is the time from when the virus enters the body until it causes the first symptoms of the disease.
Symptom of smallpox and monkeypox
Symptoms of monkeypox are like those of smallpox, such as high fever, muscle aches, headaches, and rashes on the skin. However, with monkeypox, the symptoms that occur are usually milder.
Another characteristic symptom that distinguishes monkeypox from smallpox is the enlargement of the lymph nodes, where this symptom only occurs in monkeypox.
Prevention
There is no specific way to prevent monkeypox. Prevention focuses on avoiding existing risk factors, for example delaying visits to disease-endemic countries, avoiding direct contact with primates or rodents in certain areas and similar behaviors.
We can prevent smallpox by administering the smallpox vaccine while avoiding the existing risk factors. However, since someone successfully eradicated smallpox in 1980, the smallpox vaccine has not been widely marketed.
Therefore, self-protection efforts with other methods must be a concern. Protective measures that you can take include:
- Wash hands with soapy water or hand sanitizer regularly, especially before cooking food, before eating, before and after treating wounds, or before touching the face area
- Avoid contact with wild animals and rodents such as rats, monkeys, squirrels or animals whose health status is unknown
- Avoid keeping animals whose health status is unknown
- Avoid direct contact with equipment or animal cages that are suspected of being sick
- Do not eat raw or undercooked wild animal meat
- Avoid direct contact with infected people with monkeypox, including not using items that are suspected to have been contaminated by the sufferer
- Use personal protective equipment when caring for sick people or sick animals
How to Treat Monkeypox
There is no specific treatment that can do to treat monkeypox. This disease also does not have a specific vaccine as a preventive measure. You can take certain steps to prevent its spread. Some ways to treat monkeypox you can do are:
- We must give smallpox vaccination within two weeks of exposure to monkeypox
- Take the antiviral drug cidofovir
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