An animal source of mpox emerges — and it’s a squirrel
Researchers solve the mystery of a disease outbreak through long-term surveillance of wildlife in Africa. an international team of scientists suggests that it has an answer: the fire-footed rope squirrel (Funisciurus pyrropus), a forest-dwelling rodent found in West and Central Africa1.
Monkeypox in Africa: the science the world ignored Although the name ‘monkeypox’ comes from the virus’s discovery in laboratory monkeys in 1958, researchers have long suspected rodents and other small mammals in Africa of being reservoir hosts.
And studies published in the past year2,3 have demonstrated that African outbreaks of mpox, the disease caused by the virus, have been fuelled by several transmission events from animals to humans.
Three pieces of evidence then led the researchers to conclude that Bako, who survived the infection without developing symptoms, had caught the virus after eating a fire-footed rope squirrel.
The first was that they observed mangabeys hunt and eat F. pyrropus. The second was that they found an F. pyrropus carcass teeming with a virus identical to the one infecting the mangabeys one month before Bako’s faecal samples turned positive. And finally, they identified F. pyrropus DNA in the earliest positive faecal sample from Bako.
not yet proven: do humans first get it from eating monkeys or from eating squirrels?
according to the CDC, several animals do carry mPox: including monkeys, anteaters, hedgehogs, prairie dogs, squirrels, and shrews...and it was prairie dogs, who were the source of a 2003 outbreak.
well, one does hope they didn't catch it from gerbilling.
well I asked grok and it said no:
....The idea of gerbilling as a transmission route is not supported by any peer-reviewed studies, public health reports, or data from the World Health Organization, CDC, or other authoritative sources....
headsupDave Barry who has an ongoing squirrels are out to destroy the world meme.
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