The smallpox vaccine is also effective in treating monkeypox. The virus is common in parts of Africa, is spread through close contact and it is treated using antiviral medicines. Discovered in the 1950s, the virus that causes monkeypox-which was first identified in research primates-is in the same epidemiological family as smallpox. In recent weeks, the epidemiological world has been focused on a global uptick in cases of monkeypox. “We can’t put this one back in the bottle,” Carlson said of his team’s findings.

Over the next 50 years, the spread of pathogens between humans and animals in the wild will lead to the transmission of about 4,000 new viruses between species, their research found, and increase the risk of global pandemics. What it meant, Carlson and his co-authors found, was that it may already be too late to limit the spread of zoonotic spillover-when diseases move from animals to humans-because of climate change. “And for a while, we really wanted to get into what does that mean for human health? What does it mean for pandemics?” “We know that species are on the move-we know that probably has relevance to other viruses,” said Carlson, an assistant professor of biology at Georgetown University. Their first draft included a reference to a hypothetical pneumonia outbreak of unknown origin. Carlson and a team of researchers began work on a study that explored how climate change and the destruction of wildlife habitats might affect how diseases are spread from animals to people. Long before the world had ever heard of Covid-19, Colin J.

Species Unknown by Dan Carlson