Monkeypox Virus Mutating “More Than Expected”
I’m so fucking tired.
Via Bloomberg:
The monkeypox virus may be mutating more than expected, according to researchers in Portugal, as cases rise across the UK and the US.
Scientists said the latest strain of monkeypox, once previously confined to parts of Africa, has about 50 genetic variations compared to related viruses that circulated in 2018-2019. They found the virus is continuing to evolve during the current outbreak, including a number of small changes in the genetic code, minor gene variants and a deleted gene, according to a study published in Nature Medicine on Friday.
“It was quite unexpected to find so many mutations in the 2022 monkeypox virus,” said Joao Paulo Gomes from the National Institute of Health in Lisbon and one of the authors of the report.
If you believe the CDC (and you’re a fool if you do, given how they’ve handled COVID), everything is fine:
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is looking to expand the use of the monkeypox vaccine for children, said the virus was behaving as it expected.
“All the evidence so far suggests the virus is behaving as we anticipated,” [director Gregory Armstrong] said. “It’s much more stable than most viruses, and we don’t anticipate that it’s going to be mutating at the rate of SARS-CoV-2.”
More on the new data here.
Screengrab up top is from this video:
