After examining samples from “high-risk contacts”, the ITM concludes that people infected with the virus can transmit it even before showing symptoms. “This is an important explanation for the spread of the virus,” the institute says.
In Belgium and the rest of Europe, the monkeypox epidemic is nevertheless on the decline. “Since the first case identified in May, we have learned that the Mpox virus is transmissible without necessarily showing symptoms,” explains Koen Vercauteren from the clinical virology department at IMT. “We have now demonstrated that infected people can pass on the virus even before symptoms appear.”
The institute’s research team analyzed 25 high-risk contacts. Sexual partners and roommates of infected people took daily samples that the laboratory assessed. Participants also kept diaries and were closely monitored by physicians.
“PCR test results prove they were potentially infectious up to four days before they tested positive,” Vercauteren adds. “The risk of contamination through sexual contact is also much higher than what we have assumed until now. On the other hand, it is very low during non-sexual contact. And although skin lesions are one of the specificities of the disease, they are less frequent than we supposed.”