Establishing new genomic surveillance Topic 4: Addressing the uprising in Monkey Pox

 https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/31/5/24-1299_article

Real-Time Use of Monkeypox Virus Genomic Surveillance, April 2025

Mpox, or known as Monkeypox, is an infectious virus that is caused by direct human contact or through animals. It has been significantly endemic to western and central Africa. However, its transmission started to spread to many other countries in 2022. The countries included Spain, Canada, United States, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. From this sudden outbreak, Genomic surveillance took place to determine epidemiologic linkages. Through conducted data from the surveillance, it showed that the rare descent of A.2.1 was found from travelers from non endemic regions. There was seen to be 92 nucleotide differences compared to other lineages, showing it came from a distinct origin.

Importance: This article shows the importance of using Genomic surveillance to investigate the details of widespread viruses, like Mpox. With this usage, public health was able to determine which linage caused the number of Mpox cases and identified most of the pathogen sequences. I chose this article because I had remembered when discussion started to occur from the spread of the virus. We had just started recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic and the start of cases were troubling to everyone including me. However, with using Genomic surveillance, we can have clarification on transmissions and know better what actions to take. This impacted the use of global use of data sharing and helped find ways to reduce the spread of the virus in different countries.

I learned how surveillance can be used to build a phylogenetic tree that describes cases from any region! Some questions I have are: By what percent did cases to decrease by? How can genomic surveillance be used to track animal transmission of Mpox?

Vocab:

Orthopoxvirus: ortho-"straight" A genus that comes from zoonotic diseases

Phylogenetic: phylo-"tribe" Diversification of a species or group of organisms

tecovirimat: vir- "virus" Antiviral medication that is used to treat smallpox, monkeypox, and cowpox.

Picture taken from UC Davis Health of a close up of Mpox