[Human monkey pox: its clinico-epidemiological characteristics]

During the course of the smallpox eradication programme, a new eruptive disease clinically resembling smallpox was discovered in Zaire. The disease, which was named monkeypox after the virus, is a zoonosis occurring sporadically in countries of western and central Africa with tropical rain forest. The studies carried out in Zaire from 1980 through 1985 showed that monkeypox affects mainly children in relatively small remote villages whose population has traditionally frequent contacts with wild animals. Apart from the wildlife, the virus can be transmitted from man to man, but among other sources of infection sick persons did not exceed 20%. Presumed human transmission has occurred in 38 out of 61 outbreaks of human monkeypox and only once reached the third and once the fourth generation; the transmission in all affected villages under observation has extinguished itself. Considering the sporadic and relatively rare occurrence of the disease and expected complications following the immunization with vaccinia which protects from monkeypox, introduction of mass vaccination in the areas at risk is hardly justified at present.