Mplex Monkeypox, Orthopox

Disease: Monkeypox

Symptoms
The first symptoms of monkeypox include:

• a high temperature
• a headache
• muscle aches
• backache
• swollen glands
• shivering (chills)
• exhaustion

A rash usually appears 1 to 5 days after the first symptoms. The rash often begins on the face, then spreads to other parts of the body. This can include the genitals.

The rash is sometimes confused with chickenpox. It starts as raised spots, which turn into small blisters filled with fluid. These blisters eventually form scabs which later fall off.

The symptoms usually clear up in a few weeks.

Mechanism of Infection
Monkeypox can be caught from infected rodents (such as rats, mice and squirrels) in parts of west and central Africa.

You can catch monkeypox from an infected animal if you're bitten or you touch its blood, body fluids, spots, blisters or scabs.

It may also be possible to catch monkeypox by eating meat from an infected animal from central or west Africa that has not been cooked thoroughly, or by touching other products from infected animals (such as animal skin or fur).

Monkeypox can also spread from person to person through:

• touching clothing, bedding or towels used by someone with the monkeypox rash
• touching monkeypox skin blisters or scabs (including during sex)
• the coughs or sneezes of a person with the monkeypox rash

The qualitative determination of specific DNA is based on Real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) technology. The kit contains specific primers and probes labelled with fluorescent reporter and quencher molecules for amplification and simultaneous detection of DNA sequences which represent a generic target for orthopox viruses as well as a specific target for monkeypox viruses.

The probe for the detection of the orthopox target is labelled with the fluorophore HEXTM while the probe for the detection of monkeypox is labelled with the fluorophore FAMTM.

As an internal process control, the human Ribonuclease P (RNase P) gene is detected using an Cy5TM labelled probe. The human Rnase P gene primer and probe set serves as an internal positive control to monitor sample quality, DNA extraction, and for detection of inhibitors of the PCR reaction.

The Mplex Monkeypox, Orthopox has been validated for the AriaDxTM (Agilent Technologies) Real-time PCR platform.