The study was published Friday in the journal Nature. It shows that the genetic code of the virus detected in May 2022 differs from that determined in 2018-2019 in a country where the virus is endemic.
The lead author of the work is João Paulo Gomez, of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge told the Spanish newspaper, El Mundo, that researchers compared the genome of the virus that caused the 2022 outbreak with the genomes of the same virus that had previously been studied in previous years. The goal: to understand the source of the virus that is now spreading.
According to a scientific article, it is estimated that the virus that is currently circulating in countries where it is not endemic is “most likely to have a single origin”.
The expert explains that the genetic samples of viruses were also compared in different cases of infection in the current outbreak “to see if any mutations actually appeared during the short period of transmission from person to person.”
“The world is now facing an outbreak in many countries caused by a virus with many more mutations than we can expect for this type of virus,” Joao Paulo Gomez wrote in the same journal, adding that the study added that the circulating virus appears to have “continuous accelerated evolution,” with Discover 50 mutations against previously studied viruses.
As Newsweek writes, the group of scientists has found about 50 differences between the virus circulating now and those studied four years ago.
Experts say it is necessary to continue investigating the behavior of the virus to understand how it interacts with the human body and the immune system. The more information about this interaction, the easier it is to design models that help predict the spread of the virus in humans.
Joao Paulo Gomez told “Newsweek” that it is not possible to say whether the mutations identified in the virus have somehow affected its transmissibility. One of the mutations arose by interacting with a defense mechanism of the human immune system, the function of which is to alter the genetic makeup of viruses so that they cannot reproduce in the host.
The expert says it’s possible that the current outbreak is “a descendant” of another outbreak that occurred in 2017, in Nigeria. However, the study of monkeypox is still in its infancy and the questions still outweigh the answers.
There are currently more than 3,500 confirmed cases of monkeypox infection in 44 countries, with the United Kingdom topping the list with 793 cases. Portugal has 328 confirmed cases, including 11 new infections detected in the past 24 hours.
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