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Originally found in laboratory Asian monkeys in 1958, monkeypox is one of the world’s most important zoonotic poxvirus infections. It is a rare viral disease that occurs mainly in the rain forests countries, belonging to the same family of viruses, orthopoxviruses, as cowpox, smallpox and buffalopox (Schneller). The disease was originally confined to Zaire and the African West Coast, it was in the 1970’s that epidemics had begun to occur during the World Healthcare Organization’s smallpox eradication campaign. Monkeypox found itself among those poxvirus infections that are closely watched mainly because of its high mortality rate, 11% in children and 15% with infants (Lewis-Jones). While monkeys served as a host for this disease, they were only “seasonal hosts,” a more likely host is thought to be tree squirrels, and human conception of this pox virus comes from children, who are more greatly infected, who probably contracted the virus by playing with the squirrels. The virus that causes monkeypox was extracted from a squirrel believed to be the natural host (CDC). According to Susan Lewis-Jones, MD, animal poxviruses can cause human skin diseases as well as systemic illness. When contracted by humans this illness tends to create a vesicular and pustular rash that resembles that of smallpox (ADEH). Painful blisters and crusted eschars tend to make up the lesions and are usually self-limiting as well as being rarely fatal so long as treatment is undergone (Lewis-Jones). The lesions are usually slow healing and can leave pock-like scars.
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