It is a rare disease in the UK

The UKSHA said a rare disease, smallpox, had been identified in the UK. The infection usually causes only mild illness and most people recover from it within a few weeks. More serious diseases can occur, but not often, writes an article in Sky News Indicator.

The most common symptoms of the disease are:

• Fever
• Headache
• muscle pain
• Back ache
• exhaustion.

The infection was discovered in a man who had been in Nigeria before, and it is assumed that he contracted smallpox there. He is currently being treated in a London hospital and the authorities have taken the necessary epidemiological measures.

The British Institute of Public Health (England) said the infection was only discovered among African monkeys in 1958, and that the first known human disease occurred in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The newspaper says the infection is spread mainly by wildlife, and people rarely transmit the virus to each other. The disease was last diagnosed in England in 2019.

(Featured photo illustration: The Palace of Westminster in central London on October 19, 2019. Photo: ISABEL INFANTES/AFP)