Scientist and the WHO want to rename the Monkeypox virus to remove stigma about where it come from.

The proposal is to call it to hMPXV, with h a number designating where it originated from:

1 = congo clade (where first found in 1970),

2 = west african clade, and

3 = now strain/variants with 46 mutations from number 2.

The new strain is much more infectious than the african strains which would spread to 3% of contacts only.

Nigeria (2MPXV) has had 558 cases and 8 deaths in five years. CFR (case fatality rate) ~1%

The Congo basin Clade (1MPXV) is 10 x more virulent. CFR ~ 10%

Both strains are more aggressive towards children who have a CFR about 3 times higher.

We know very little about 3MPXV, the new strain of Monkeypox which started circulating in Europe this year. We know that it has 47 mutations more than the Nigerian virus. It was a puzzle for awhile as to how a DNA virus like monkeypos could mutate so much as it generally mutated only once a year and it had 42 more mutations than expected from the cases identified in the UK Naval base in 2017.

The human enzymes APOBEC3 acts as a defence mechanism toward DNA viruses by changing the DNA letters TT –> TA, and GA –> AA.

It is ironic that the defensive mechanism helped the MPX virus to mutate to 3MPXV, which is thousands of times more infectious than 1MPXV and 2MPXV.

So far there have been about 1800 cases of the new monkeypox virus 3MPXV, but NO DEATHS, as at 15 June 2022, that I am aware of.