For the second time, a new virus from the smallpox family struck a person living in Alaska. Should we fear a new global pandemic? For the moment, this virus transmitted by small mammals seems to occur only in this region of the United States.
The toll of the current Covid-19 pandemic continues to worsen. More than 36.6 million people have been infected for more than a million deaths . If the media evoke this health crisis daily, other viruses can however appear. As reported by the local Anchorage Daily News on October 1, 2020, a new virus from the smallpox family just infected a person living in Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaska Department of Health released a bulletin describing this second case of "Alaskan pox". This is the second time that this new virus has infected a person living in this city. Indeed in 2017, doctors had described a first case dating from 2015 in a publication of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
The patient embodying this new case saw a small lesion appear on the upper part of her arm, then that of an erythema a few days later. The patient testified to the presence of other symptoms such as lymphadenopathy, fatigue, shoulder pain and night fever.
Doctors performed a biopsy of the lesion in a laboratory. The latter then observed the presence of an orthopoxvirus, the same as that of the 2015 patient. Remember that orthopoxviruses are double-stranded DNA viruses belonging to the Chordopoxviridae family. . Capable of infecting many vertebrates including humans, they are responsible for benign skin lesions but also deadly diseases such as smallpox.
The orthopoxvirus that doctors have identified is the same type as smallpox. On the other hand, this one still seems much less dangerous. In the new patient, the shoulder pain disappeared after two weeks and the lesion disappeared after six weeks. However, the 2015 patient did not see her condition improve for six months.
Doctors say 'Alaskan pox' is transmitted by small mammals . Let us mention the fact that the patient has two cats, themselves potentially in contact with small mammals. The person concerned also claimed not to have had contact with any wild animal. As for the 2015 patient, the latter had a dozen small mammals in her home, but none had the famous orthopoxvirus.
It turns out that the mode of transmission to humans is still not quite clear. However, given the proximity of the two cases, it would be an animal living in Alaska. Health authorities estimate that, due to a five-year gap between the two cases, infection with the virus could be only occasional . Only recommendations have been made such as avoiding touching wild animals, droppings and washing your hands regularly.
