Monkeypox May Cause Neurological Damage in Small Subset of Patients, Scientists Say

The disfiguring rash and flu-like symptoms of monkeypox have been described, but few have investigated the neurological and psychiatric problems the virus might cause.

There have been reports of neurological problems in people who have been exposed to the related vaccinia virus and in people who have been given a vaccine against it. We wanted to know if monkeypox causes the same issues.

The evidence from before the current monkeypox epidemic was looked at. The results can be found in the journal.

A small percentage of people with monkeypox became very unwell and developed serious neurological problems, including seizure and encephalitis.

There was confusion in a lot of people. The figures are based on a few studies.

There are people with monkeypox who have more common neurological symptoms such as headaches, muscle ache, and fatigue.

It was not known how severe these symptoms were or how long they lasted. It wasn't clear how many people with monkeypox had mental health issues. Low mood was reported a lot of the time.

We don't know what's going on in people with monkeypox. We'd like to know if the strain of monkeypox virus affects the problems. We weren't able to look into this properly because it wasn't reported in studies.

The studies in our paper can't say with any certainty that monkeypox is the cause of the symptoms. Future research will need to follow people who don't have any mental health issues before they get bitten by monkeypox.

If it is the virus that is causing these problems, the biological processes underlying it are unclear and could involve the virus directly entering the nervous system, or something else entirely.

It's possible that the stigma people experience from monkeypox infections could contribute to psychological distress.

Evidence before the current monkeypox epidemic was studied. Most of the data was from west Africa and people in the hospital with an infectious disease.

We don't know what the symptoms of previous outbreak will look like.

Backed by other recent studies

Since finishing our paper, important research has come out. Over 500 people with monkeypox from 16 countries were included in a study.

There were no reported cases of encephalitis or seizure, but headaches and fatigue were found in more than a quarter of people with monkeypox.

There have been cases of encephalitis in Spain. The true extent of more serious problems such as encephalitis and seizure needs to be determined.

Improving access to vaccine is needed in order to combat the monkeypox outbreak.

Although monkeypox causes flu-like symptoms and skin problems, our latest study shows that it's not the only cause of mental health issues.

We don't expect a lot of brain problems, but some may occur in a small number of people. We don't know if these symptoms persist over time or if they are caused by monkeypox.

The Academic Foundation Doctor is James Brunton Badenoch.

Under a Creative Commons license, this article is re-posted. The original article is worth a read.