Science at UM [S04-ep08]: The Mpox Outbreak

[Podcast] - Published on November 14, 2024 in Science and Society

This week on "Science at the UM," Martine Peeters from the Transvihmi and Eddy Lusamaki from INRB talk to us about the Mpox virus outbreak. In the second half of the program, we’ll visit the Cemipai to discuss other viruses with Aymeric Neyret. A program broadcast every Wednesday at 6 p.m. on Divergence FM 93.9.

Summer 2022: as the world emerges from two years of pandemic, a new threat is rearing its head: Mpox, often mistakenly referred to as monkeypox. A zoonotic virus related to human smallpox—a disease declared eradicated in 1980. Previously confined to rural and forested areas of West and Central Africa, Mpox began appearing in non-endemic areas in May 2022, where it was detected for the first time, notably on European soil. By July 2022, the WHO had already recorded 75 non-endemic countries affected and declared the virus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). This was the time when prevention posters describing the disease’s initial symptoms, modes of transmission, and recommendations in case of doubt began appearing in the restrooms of bars and nightclubs. It was also the time when the disease gained a scandalous reputation reminiscent of another era: Mpox was said to primarily affect men who have sex with men. While gay men are indeed overrepresented among those diagnosed, as always, numerous factors will explain this interpretive bias.

Unlike with COVID-19, the availability of a vaccine against Mpox—the same one that had eradicated smallpox 40 years earlier—made it possible to contain the initial outbreak in 2022. But in August 2024, a new alert was issued, and the WHO declared another public health emergency of international concern. Attention then turns to the DRC and several neighboring countries affected by a resurgence of infections and the emergence of a possible new, more transmissible viral strain.

Since 2018, Martine Peeters of the Transvihmi laboratory and Eddy Lusamaki ofthe INRB have been studying the various strains of Mpox present in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as part of the AFROSCREEN1 and PANAFPOX2 projects, jointly conducted by the National Institute of Research (INRB) in the DRC, the IRD, and Inserm. Their findings, published in Cell on October 24, 2024, provide important new insights into the genetic diversity of Mpox circulating in the DRC and the predominant mode of transmission.

In the second half of the program, we’re bringing you a rebroadcast of our report from Cemipai, the Center for Infectious Diseases and Anti-Infective Pharmacology, where we meet Aymeric Neyret, a research engineer at the University of Montpellier and an expert in electron microscopy. Safely sheltered behind his biosafety workstation, he scrutinizes viruses to better identify the molecules capable of neutralizing them and developing new treatments.

At UM Science, you’ve got the program—let’s get started!

Co-production: Divergence FM / University of Montpellier
Host: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interview: Lucie Lecherbonnier / Aline Périault
Reporting and editing: Lucie Lecherbonnier / Aline Périault
Director: Tom Chevalier

Tune in to the show “A l’UM la science” on Divergence FM 93.9

Keywords: Science at UM, Research, Science, Company