We’re all getting something that I don’t think any of us wanted: another lesson in real-time virology and epidemiology. I’m referring to the puzzling recent outbreak of monkeypox, which is getting more and more headlines. Add that to the rise in hepatitis cases in children, on top of the continuing (damn it all) coronavirus pandemic, and we really have a lot more virus news to work through than usual. I’m not sure what the optimum level is, but this ain’t it.

A quick look at the monkeypox virus, then. For starters, it is in no way related to the coronavirus as a virus – totally different part of the landscape. Monkeyvirus is a DNA virus (not an RNA one like corona), and it’s in the same broad group as variola (smallpox), cowpox, and vaccinia. In fact, smallpox vaccination itself is rather effective against monkeypox infection (about 85%), but fewer and fewer people have been vaccinated against the now-extinct smallpox virus (a triumph of medical science and public health, let us not forget), and those of us who were are of questionable immune status. It’s been a while! The virus appears to be endemic in West and Central Africa, and there have been outbreaks in that area before. For that matter, there have been outbreaks in other parts of the world, too – monkeypox can be carried in a number of mammalian species, and a 2003 outbreak in the Midwest traced back to people handling prairie dogs purchased from pet stores (!), which had in turn been infected by Gambian pouched rats (!) imported from Ghana. 77 people eventually came down with the disease that time, all