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For the first time, a case of co-infection virus of the smallpox of the monkeys, COVID-19 And HIV: it is a 36 year old Italian man, returning from a trip to Spain and hospitalized for about two weeks at the “G. Rodolico – San Marco ”of Catania. This is what we learn from an article published in the magazine Journal of Infectionwhich reports the medical history of the unfortunate patient who, during last July, would have turned out positive for all three viruses: long discharged from the hospital, now he would be fine.
Similarities between viruses
They would be over 16 thousand in 74 countries around the world people, beginning in 2022, to have been affected by monkeypox, an infectious disease caused by Monkeypox virusa pathogen belonging to the same genus as human smallpox which is mainly transmitted through close contact with infectious material from skin lesions, seminal fluids and secretions of the nose and mouth of infected people. The wide spread of this disease (whose contagion is usually infrequent in humans) prompted the World Health Organization, on 23 July, to declare it a ‘international public health emergency. How we remember and how reports the Ministry of Health, monkeypox manifests itself with heterogeneous symptoms and is able to cause disease courses that vary from case to case: generally those affected have mild symptoms, such as fever, drowsiness, body aches and headacheswhich precede the appearance of skin lesions throughout the body, especially at the extremities of the limbs, on the head and on the torso. Symptoms typically last two to three weeks and usually go away on their own.
Identifying a case of monkeypox is not always immediate, as the clinical manifestations of this disease, especially the initial ones, present many similarities with those of other infections, COVID-19 including, which, two and a half years after its appearance, continues to represent one of the most widespread diseases and one of the main causes of mortality globally. In addition, in addition to having some symptoms in common (including the appearance of skin manifestationsalbeit rarer in the case of Covid-19), the disease caused by Sars-cov-2 also shares the mode of transmission through i droplet of saliva, which causes a wide spread within the population. For this reason, the study reads, these pathogens continue to spread widely globally, and not just some people may come infected with both viruses at the same time, but in case of infections through unprotected sexual intercourse, they also contract sexually transmitted diseases.
The Italian case
This is what happened to the case presented in the study. The patient, a 36-year-old Italian man, spent five days in Spainfrom 16 to 20 June last, developing, just over a week after his return, fever, sore throat, fatigue, headache and swollen lymph nodes: on 2 July he tested positive for Sars-cov-2. However, after the onset of flu-like symptoms, all over the patient’s body (especially on the lower limbs, torso and face) began to appear small painful blisterswhich then became pustules; at this point, the patient went to the emergency room of the Catania hospital, where he was admitted to the infectious disease ward. Upon further analysis, the man was found positive to Sars-cov-2 (lineage variant BA.5.1, i.e. omicron 5) et al virus of the smallpox of the monkeysin particular the West African clade, the variant responsible for the epidemic in Spain and, as reported by theCollege of Health (Iss), associated with a less severe disease. Since the patient stated that he had had unprotected sex during his stay in Spain, he has undergone other serological tests and is also tested positive for HIV: according to the authors of the article, it would be arecent infection.
Fortunately the the course of the diseases was quite rapid: On the fifth day of admission almost all the symptoms reported by the patient had disappeared and the blood values normalized. After being discharged to home isolation, after a week the scabs of the skin lesions healed, while, in the meantime, the patient started antiviral treatment forHIV. According to the authors, the study highlights how the symptoms of monkeypox and Covid-19 can overlap and recalls the importance of carrying out thorough investigations to make a correct diagnosis. In addition, the article reads, this case would suggest that the predominant mode of transmission for monkeypox may be sexual.
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