{"id":7398,"date":"2024-08-20T15:58:37","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T20:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=7398"},"modified":"2024-08-20T15:58:41","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T20:58:41","slug":"the-untold-story-of-how-nigerias-mpox-outbreak-sparked-a-worldwide-epidemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2024\/08\/20\/the-untold-story-of-how-nigerias-mpox-outbreak-sparked-a-worldwide-epidemic\/","title":{"rendered":"The untold story of how Nigeria\u2019s mpox outbreak sparked a worldwide epidemic"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/untold-story-how-nigeria-s-mpox-outbreak-sparked-worldwide-epidemic\">Science<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mpox circulated in Nigeria for 8 years before it sparked a global outbreak. What happened? And could it have been stopped? n 1 May 2017,&nbsp;a 35-year-old man with lesions all over his body came to the university hospital in Port Harcourt, an oil industry hub and the capital of Rivers state in southern Nigeria. A deep ulcer had eaten into the shaft of his penis. \u201cIt actually looked like it was going to drop off,\u201d says Bolaji Otike-Odibi, the dermatologist who treated him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tests\u2014and her experience\u2014ruled out chickenpox, syphilis, and molloscum contagiosum, a viral infection that causes pearl-like bumps on the skin. \u201cI asked all my colleagues,\u201d Otike-Odibi recalls. \u201cIt was something we had never seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She took a sexual history of the man, who lived in Eleme, an hour\u2019s drive east. He told her he had multiple sexual partners and that a condom had broken during intercourse a few days before the sores appeared. During the man\u2019s hospital stay, which lasted 45 days, a second patient was admitted with similar lesions, including on his genitals, and a similar sexual history. He tested positive for HIV, but that didn\u2019t explain his condition. \u201cWe were worried that this was an epidemic,\u201d Otike-Odibi says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first two patients were discharged; in the subsequent months another two who fit the same profile arrived. Both had more advanced HIV infections and both died. \u201cI took their pictures, I took their histories, because I knew that one day, somebody will tell me what this thing is,\u201d Otike-Odibi says. \u201cThis is not normal. This thing means something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/untold-story-how-nigeria-s-mpox-outbreak-sparked-worldwide-epidemic\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\" j nAEL ySlj iz xN y\"><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science Mpox circulated in Nigeria for 8 years before it sparked a global outbreak. What happened? And could it have been stopped? n 1 May 2017,&nbsp;a 35-year-old man with lesions all over his body came to the university hospital in Port Harcourt, an oil industry hub and the capital of Rivers state in southern Nigeria. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monkeypox"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7399,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7398\/revisions\/7399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}