Review on monkey pox virus

Monkeypox is a zoonotic disease and endemic to western and central Africa, and was first discovered in 1958 and in 1970 when a 3-year-old child from the Equateur region of the Democratic Republic of Congo formed a clinical syndrome similar to smallpox in the region where the smallpox virus had already been interrupted. The cases increased up to 72 in early 2000s. DRC Ministry of Health gathered the data from 2010-2014 and came to the conclusion that the reported cases were exceeding 2000 cases annually. This virus has similar genetic makeup and pathophysiology to smallpox virus with the exclusion that this virus enters from the wildlife source by the means of small lesions on the skin or oral mucous membrane. There is still no proper treatment specifically against monkeypox infections however, monkeypox and smallpox share same genetic material so the antiviral drugs and vaccines developed to protect against smallpox can also be used to treat monkeypox infections. In this article we discussed the emergence, history, mode of infection and vaccines available for the virus. We also gave an insight on the pathophysiology of the virus.