The monkeypox virus is mutating more quickly than scientists expected.
The team of researchers in Portugal behind the paper analyzed previous samples of the monkeypox virus, including samples from 2018 to 2019, and compared the DNA to samples from the current 2022 outbreak. The results suggest the virus has evolved very quickly,, an infectious disease expert at the University of Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, who was not directly involved in the research, tells SELF.
To be clear, it’s well-known that viruses evolve and adapt; that the monkeypox virus has done so isn’t the surprising part. Rather, it’s the speed—a mutation up to 6 to 12 times faster than expected, per the new research—that has experts questioning whether monkeypox could be more infectious now than in the past. The new research raises the possibility of higher contagiousness, “but we just don’t know yet,” Dr. Russo says.
The monkeypox strain currently circulating outside of endemic areas is one of two types and is thought to be the less severe of the two, according to the World Health Organization . One strain is endemic to the West Africa region and the other is endemic to the Congo Basin region, per the WHO.
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