‘Dual source’ caused Aids-like virus:

A genetic study of SIV – the Aids-like virus that infects monkeys – suggests that HIV – the virus that causes Aids in humans – came about through the combination of two viruses in chimpanzees.

Chimps could have been infected by other SIV-type viruses when they preyed on monkeys.

The study confirms what has been established about the origin of Aids: it emerged from the forests of western Africa some time in the last century.

Humans caught it from chimpanzees when they ate them as food, or became exposed to their blood in rituals. BBC

Person-to-person cases of monkeypox suspected: A nurse and a medical assistant in Wisconsin who cared for patients with monkeypox infections have come down with symptoms suggestive of the disease, and so has the boyfriend of the medical assistant, raising concerns about person-to-person transmission in this less virulent ‘cousin’ of smallpox. Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Debates about the possible efficacy of smallpox inoculation aginst the spread of the disease are beginning. Discussion of the nontrivial risks of the inoculation, which had been couched in terms of the theoretical risk of a bioterrorist attack with the smallpox virus, must now be reframed in terms of a real, although lesser, threat situation.

Note, as well, that the monkeypox infection shares with most recent emergent diseases the fact that its origins were in a jump from an animal reservoir. Along with HIV (as discussed above), the SARS virus, Ebola and related hemorrhagic fevers, Hantavirus share that characteristic as well. With the control of infectious diseases being the medical success story of the 20th century, it might make sense that the most significant disease challenges leap out of the dark at us in this manner. On the other hand, does preoccupation with ‘sexy’ novel infections divert our attention from real public health emergencies of much wider scope, such as HIV/Aids, antibiotic-resistant strains of more common ‘bugs’, and the resurgence of tuberculosis and STDs (where the issue is more one of the political will to allocate resources properly rather than the scientific know-how to address the disease process)?