On Wednesday, August 14, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a “public health emergency of international concern,” its highest level of alert, for the disease Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, or monkeypoxA new strain, called “clade 1b”, is actively circulating in Africa, from the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This classification has rekindled the conspiracy reflexes of some Internet users, who relay false information against a backdrop of homophobia. Here are some of these claims, and why they are misleading.
No, the Mpox virus has no connection with shingles or the Covid vaccine
In a video translated into several languages, viewed more than 400,000 times on X (ex-Twitter) and relayed on Facebook, Wolfgang Wodarg, a German doctor known for his anti-vaccine positions, claims that the symptoms described for Mpox are the same as those of shingles. According to him, this epidemic would also be a side effect of the Covid vaccine, and the pharmaceutical industry would only seek to scare people for commercial purposes.
This is false on several counts: Mpox, identified in the 1970s in a child in the former Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), is much older than the anti-Covid vaccines. In addition, it is a zoonotic virus, of animal origin, from the poxvirus family, while shingles – a reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus – is from the herpes family. The symptoms are also different. Shingles causes smaller lesions that generate characteristic intense pain. The symptoms of Mpox are “a rash that may be isolated or preceded or accompanied by a fever or swollen and painful lymph nodes, under the jaw, in the neck or in the groin crease. This rash is “made up of fluid-filled vesicles that develop into dryness, crusting and then healing. While the vesicles are more concentrated on the face, in the ano-genital area, the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, they can be present all over the body as well as the mucous membranes, particularly the mouth and ano-genital. In these latter locations, the lesions can be very painful”, details the Ministry of Health on its website. These rashes may be itchy and, in addition to fever, associated symptoms may include body aches and fatigue.
No, MPOX does not only affect homosexuals
On social media, some people reassure themselves by claiming that Mpox only affects homosexuals, with homophobic messages deeming these practices “disgusting”. But as Professor Richard Martinello, an infectious disease specialist at Yale University School of Medicine, explains to AFP, “no infectious disease in the world is transmitted differently depending on sexual orientation. It is intimate skin-to-skin contact that can allow the transmission of Mpox, and not each person’s sexual orientation”.
It is the infected fluid contained in the patient’s vesicles that transmits the virus, recalls Professor Antoine Gessain, a specialist in the disease at the Pasteur Institute, recalling that children can be infected “by skin contact”, but also, as in the epidemic of late 2023 in the DRC, “heterosexuals with multiple partners.”
No, there is currently no miracle treatment.
A popular conspiracy theory, particularly on YouTube and Facebook, claims that a drug against Mpox is very effective but is not available, based on the words of the controversial Professor Raoult in 2022, the date of the previous Mpox epidemic but of clade 2b, different from the current strain and which is still circulating very slowly in France. According to him at the time, against Mpox, “the most effective molecule is a Japanese drug called Tranilast. […] It will never be marketed here, because it costs nothing.” Tranilast, approved in 1982 in Japan and China for asthma, but not approved in Europe for this treatment, has never been the subject of clinical studies on humans against Mpox. The study mentions in vitro and mouse tests of different molecules on the vaccinia virus, from the same family as smallpox and Mpox.
On the other hand, vaccination, combined with awareness-raising among people at risk and isolation of contact cases, has made it possible to contain the Mpox epidemic in 2022. 232 vaccination sites are already open in France, resigning Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said last week.
No, WHO has not ordered any lockdown
“Attention, mega-lockdowns in sight!” warn Internet users, arguing that these measures were ordered by the WHO to “governments”, thus attesting to the thesis of a “plandemic”, a neologism describing an orchestrated pandemic, according to the conspiracy narrative.
The WHO does not have the power to order governments to prepare for these “mega-lockdowns,” “or any type of lockdown for that matter,” the organization confirmed to AFP. “As a scientific and technical organization, WHO provides advice to its 194 member states. Each country is sovereign in its decisions and actions regarding the health of its populations.” The WHO’s European director called for calm last week, saying that Mpox was not the new Covid.
In France, on TikTok, Internet users even assure that due to the Mpox epidemic, “the start of the school year is postponed”. Information formally denied to AFP by the Ministry of Education. To date, no cases of Mpox of the new 1b strain have been reported in the country.