Infectious Disease Assignment
NURS 2550
As countries and economies are finally regaining pre-pandemic levels of normalcy, the
human monkeypox virus has raised considerable fear after the WHO declared the virus a public
health emergency of international concern back in July of 2022. Monkeypox is an emerging
infectious disease for which outbreak regularity and size has steadily increased and has been
, noted to have a reproduction number of greater than 1, which indicates that it has the power to
spread to a large number of people in a given population (Kumar et al., 2022). This is the first
time that the virus has been reported simultaneously outside of endemic countries in vastly
different regions, although, health experts still deem COVID-19 as the number one threat to our
health at this time.
The monkeypox virus was first discovered in 1958 in Copenhagen when two outbreaks
occurred in colonies of monkeys that were shipped from Singapore to Denmark and kept for
research (Hraib et al., 2022). The virus had been contained and isolated in the research facility
where the name monkeypox was eventually coined for the initial isolate. The spillover event that
caused the disease in humans occurred in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo where a
nine-month-old child had contracted the infection, but the initial source remains unknown as the
baby did not receive it from skin to skin contact (Kumar et al., 2022). The virus belongs to the
Orthopoxivirus genus of the Poxviradae family and is a double stranded DNA virus, and does not
show many mutations when compared to the more pathogenic RNA viruses like HIV or SARS-
CoV-2 (Hraib et al., 2022). Smallpox and cowpox viruses also belong to the same family and
share similar symptoms, while chickenpox is not related at all to monkeypox. The signs and
symptoms of monkeypox are quite mild compared to those of smallpox, where the main
difference is the prescence of swollen lymph nodes or lymphadenopathy in monkeypox (Kumar
et al., 2022). Early symptoms include fever, headaches, chills, muscle aches, fatigue, and skin
lesions. People also get a rash located on or near their genitals, or on other areas such as the face,
mouth, chest, hands, and feet. The incubation period is around 7-14 days and can take up to 21
days before symptoms may appear (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022). the
person is infected, they develop a fever followed by lesions that start to surface in the
NURS 2550
As countries and economies are finally regaining pre-pandemic levels of normalcy, the
human monkeypox virus has raised considerable fear after the WHO declared the virus a public
health emergency of international concern back in July of 2022. Monkeypox is an emerging
infectious disease for which outbreak regularity and size has steadily increased and has been
, noted to have a reproduction number of greater than 1, which indicates that it has the power to
spread to a large number of people in a given population (Kumar et al., 2022). This is the first
time that the virus has been reported simultaneously outside of endemic countries in vastly
different regions, although, health experts still deem COVID-19 as the number one threat to our
health at this time.
The monkeypox virus was first discovered in 1958 in Copenhagen when two outbreaks
occurred in colonies of monkeys that were shipped from Singapore to Denmark and kept for
research (Hraib et al., 2022). The virus had been contained and isolated in the research facility
where the name monkeypox was eventually coined for the initial isolate. The spillover event that
caused the disease in humans occurred in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo where a
nine-month-old child had contracted the infection, but the initial source remains unknown as the
baby did not receive it from skin to skin contact (Kumar et al., 2022). The virus belongs to the
Orthopoxivirus genus of the Poxviradae family and is a double stranded DNA virus, and does not
show many mutations when compared to the more pathogenic RNA viruses like HIV or SARS-
CoV-2 (Hraib et al., 2022). Smallpox and cowpox viruses also belong to the same family and
share similar symptoms, while chickenpox is not related at all to monkeypox. The signs and
symptoms of monkeypox are quite mild compared to those of smallpox, where the main
difference is the prescence of swollen lymph nodes or lymphadenopathy in monkeypox (Kumar
et al., 2022). Early symptoms include fever, headaches, chills, muscle aches, fatigue, and skin
lesions. People also get a rash located on or near their genitals, or on other areas such as the face,
mouth, chest, hands, and feet. The incubation period is around 7-14 days and can take up to 21
days before symptoms may appear (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2022). the
person is infected, they develop a fever followed by lesions that start to surface in the
