Mutations in virus causing monkeypox outbreak allow it to spread more easily

The strain of the virus in the current monkeypox outbreak in nonendemic countries likely diverged from the monkeypox virus that caused a 2018-19 Nigerian outbreak and has far more mutations than would be expected, several that increase transmission, according to a study today in Nature Medicine. The study comes from Portugal’s National Institute of Health in Lisbon, which was the first institution to genetically sequence the current strain behind more than 3,000 cases of monkeypox in Europe, North America, and other regions that had never seen the virus until this year. Researchers found the current strain diverges from the original strain by 50 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and several mutations made the virus more transmissible. The strain belongs to clade 3 of the West African strain of the virus, which is less fatal than the Congo Basin clade. Monkeypox outbreaks from clade 3 are typically reported from western Cameroon to Sierra Leone...