Monkeypox is already contaminated by rumors

Disease “caused by vaccines”, “fueled by Bill Gates”: The recent appearance of cases of monkeypox outside of Africa is already giving rise to many infox, rumors and conspiracy innuendos on the Internet, much of it modeled after the that have been circulating since 2020 around the Covid.

– Monkeypox and the AstraZeneca vaccine. “Smallpox is one of the side effects of Astra

Zeneca”, say Internet users, a particularly widespread fake news around the world. As “proof”, they argue that a “chimpanzee adenovirus” was used to create the vaccine. But the experts interviewed by AFP explain that it is totally “unfounded” and that the two diseases have nothing to do with each other, they belong to different families of viruses (poxvirus for monkeypox and adenovirus for Covid-19).

“It is not possible for this adenovirus to transform” into the virus responsible for monkeypox, explains Teresa Lambe, professor of immunology at the University of Oxford. The adenovirus is used in the vaccine as a vector, that is, as a simple vehicle to transport the genetic instructions to the cells of the vaccinated, which can then create its immune response against Covid. And as in other so-called “viral vector” vaccines, the adenovirus has been modified so that it does not contaminate the body of the vaccinated, she adds.

Finally, monkeypox owes its name to the fact that it was first discovered in macaques in 1958, but it is not specific to this species, Inserm notes. It is also found in rodents, for example.

– Monkeypox “fomented” by the “elites”. In 2021, NTI, an American organization specializing in the prevention of nuclear and bacteriological risks, organized a simulation of a monkeypox epidemic. The date chosen for this fictional scenario? May 2022.

This coincidence is widely exploited to affirm or imply that the multiplication of cases of “monkey pox” was orchestrated.

As the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the many contributors to NTI, the American billionaire – already the target of numerous conspiracy theses for years – is also accused of being behind this new health alert.

“For the purposes of the exercise, we wanted to select a pathogen that was plausible in our scenario and chose monkeypox from several options proposed by our experts,” explained NTI, noting that “the risks posed by monkeypox have been well documented for years by many health authorities.” “What needs to be remembered (from the 2021 simulation, editor’s note) is not the particular disease (chosen) in our fictional setting, (but) the fact that the world is not absolutely prepared for future pandemics and that we must act urgently to remedy this weakness”, adds the organization.

A similar rumor had circulated in 2020 about Covid, based on a simulation of a coronavirus epidemic carried out in 2019.

– Doxycycline, a new pseudo-remedy. Many publications claim that doxycycline, an antibiotic that “cures monkeypox in two days,” would have been banned by order of the Ministry of Health. This is false: the official text does not say that, it authorizes the vaccination -in certain specific cases- of people exposed to the monkeypox virus and does not mention doxycycline.

In addition, doxycycline is not considered a treatment for this disease, as several experts explained to AFP, if only because it is an antibiotic, so it is used to fight bacteria, not viruses.

On the other hand, if necessary, antiviral drugs (such as tecovirimat) can be used against monkeypox, doctors and health authorities remind.

Julie CHARPENTRAT/AFP