Scientists speculate that monkeypox may have undergone a process of 'accelerated evolution '

The virus is changing at a rate that is up to 12 times quicker than anyone anticipated.

 

A new study reveals that the monkeypox virus underwent a time of "accelerated evolution," during which it changed at a far quicker rate than would typically be predicted and likely experienced a period of "accelerated evolution."

 

There have been dozens of new alterations that could make the virus more infectious. Since it was first discovered outside of Africa in May, the virus has infected more than 3,500 people in 48 different countries. According to a new study that was published on June 24 in the journal Nature Medicine, the virus includes a total of 50 novel mutations that have not been seen in prior strains detected between the years 2018 and 2019. The authors of the study pointed out that researchers typically do not anticipate viruses such as monkeypox to acquire more than one or two new mutations per year.

 

The disease known as monkeypox is extremely uncommon, but virologists believe that monkeys and rodents may spontaneously spread it to one another. It is an orthopoxvirus and belongs to the same family and genus as the variola virus, which is responsible for causing smallpox. In most cases, the virus does not travel very far outside of West and Central Africa, where it is endemic. This year, however, the disease experienced its first significant outbreak that moved beyond Africa, which surprised scientists and prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to begin reviewing whether or not to label the outbreak as a global health emergency.

 

According to STAT, the different strains of the monkeypox virus may be divided into two clades, also known as lineages. These clades are called the West African and Congo Basin clades. The viruses that make up each clade carry different fatality rates; the West African clade has a fatality rate of approximately 1 percent, whereas the Congo Basin clade is responsible for the deaths of almost 10 percent of the people whom it infects. According to STAT's findings, the ongoing outbreak appears to be driven by a clade that originated in West Africa.

 

Because monkeypox is a big double-stranded DNA virus, it is considerably more capable of correcting replication faults than an RNA virus such as HIV. Because of this, the present strain of monkeypox should have only accrued a handful of mutations when it first started circulating in 2018. However, when the researchers collected DNA from 15 different samples of the monkeypox virus and reconstructed the genetic information of the samples, they discovered that the actual mutation rate was six to twelve times higher than what they had anticipated.

 

The significant increase in the rate of mutation caused by the monkey virus "is significantly greater than one would expect considering earlier estimates of the substitution rate for orthopoxviruses," the researchers noted in the report they published on their findings. Our findings provide new insights into the continuing process of viral evolution and the possibility of human adaptation to it.

 

Traditionally, monkeypox was passed from one individual to another through close skin contact with open skin lesions, bodily fluids, contaminated items, or respiratory droplets spit into the air by an infected person. However, the extraordinary rate at which new infections are occurring may be an indication that something may have changed about how the virus infects its hosts; the new mutations may be a possible explanation for this change.

 

The researchers found that many of the changes they found carried telltale signals that they may have developed as a result of the virus's contact with the human immune system, notably a family of virus-fighting enzymes called APOBEC3. These enzymes combat viruses by causing them to produce errors in the process of copying their genetic code. This action typically results in the virus disintegrating into its parts. However, there are instances in which the virus can survive the interaction and, as a result, acquire a few mutations in its genetic code. This information is provided by STAT. The researchers hypothesized that the virus accumulated a large number of modifications in a relatively short amount of time as a result of numerous encounters with the type of conflict described above.

 

The rate at which the virus mutated accelerated in 2018, and there are a few hypotheses regarding why this may have occurred. It's plausible that the virus has been circulating throughout Europe at low levels since then, picking up a slew of new mutations as it fights with enzymes. This is something that may have happened. Or, it's likely that, following the epidemic in 2017, the virus stopped spreading in Europe but mostly continued to do so in African countries, rapidly mutating as it migrated between tiny groups before making a comeback in places where it wasn't normally seen this year.

 

Alternately, the virus may have been quietly spreading among animals in places where it is not endemic for a considerable amount of time before unexpectedly jumping back over to humans this year. We may not have been aware of this.

 

Despite its name, monkeypox is most frequently passed on to humans by rodents. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the species of rodents believed to be the primary reservoirs of the disease are African rope squirrels, striped mice, giant-pouched rats, and brush-tailed porcupines. The condition can also be transmitted to humans by other species of rodents.

 

The last time that monkeypox was this widespread in the United States was in 2003 when 71 people became infected with the West African clade after a shipment of infected Gambian pouched rats, imported to Texas from Ghana, passed on the disease to local prairie dogs. This was the last time monkeypox was this widespread in the United States.

 

Natural therapy for monkeypox has not yet been tested. Still, in the meanwhile, medical professionals are treating patients with antiviral medications and antibodies obtained from individuals who have been treated with the smallpox vaccine. Scientists were able to eradicate smallpox in 1980 by using a strategy called "ring vaccination," which involved inoculating the close contacts of an initial case to prevent further infections. Transmission is also reduced if people have the monkeypox or smallpox vaccine. This allowed scientists to prevent other infections by inoculating the close contacts of an initial case.

 Article source : https://www.livescience.com/monkeypox-mutating-fast

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