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> Monkeys can get monkeypox, which means they're not the reservoir animal. I agree with the rest of your comment, but is this part actually true? I would think
by jdminhbg 4y ago
> Monkeys can get monkeypox, which means they're not the reservoir animal.
I agree with the rest of your comment, but is this part actually true? I would think an animal could serve as a reservoir as long as the disease isn't deadly. But I don't know and I'm happy to be corrected if wrong.
- XorNot 4y agoThe short version is no: if you get symptoms and recover, then the immune system has cleared it, so you can't be a carrier. The obvious counter-example is herpes - where you periodically get symptoms and become infectious, but otherwise are not. In the case of monkeypox though, as far as is currently known they are not major carriers of the disease - the name is just the animal it was first isolated in, since numerous other animals can be infected. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox#Reservoir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeypox#Reservoir
- jdminhbg 4y agoThanks for the explanation, I hadn't considered the immune system clearing it.
- im3w1l 4y ago> The short version is no: if you get symptoms and recover, then the immune system has cleared it, so you can't be a carrier. That's not necessarily true. Many viruses are only pushed into dormancy by the immune system, and can come back and give you symptoms years later, at which point they can spread to other people. For example: Chickenpox, herpes, hiv.