3 ms·

Questions I have for researchers: Is this a new strain or one of the two known strains? Are we witnessing greater human-to-human transmission than previously

• simonh 4y ago
  The article has you covered on the first question. >The most important insight they have gained so far is that each of the sequences closely resembles that of a monkeypox strain found in western Africa. The wikipedia article for the current outbreak gives 0 deaths so far. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_monkeypox_outbreak
• radicaldreamer 4y ago
  >Is this a new strain or one of the two known strains? It's been confirmed that the current outbreak is the same as a 2018 outbreak of the West African clade. >Are we witnessing greater human-to-human transmission than previously known? This is the million $ question... it's been speculated that this outbreak originated due to some kind of (very) close contact event with dozens of people in Europe and continues to spread because of the long incubation period for monkeypox. >What is the fatality rate so far of this outbreak? None, so far (but it's still early).
• hh3k0 4y ago
  I am not a researcher but I can answer one of your questions: it is the less-lethal strain (west African clade) but it appears that 94 nucleotide and 51 amino acid changes have occured since our sequencing of the closest strain in 2018. (That is apparently a lot by DNA virus standards, as a friend of mine who happens to be a molecularbiologist has told me.)