Monkeypox is a side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine Amid the recent surge of monkeypox cases across the U.S., some social media users are claiming the disease is linked to COVID-19 vaccines.
“Monkeypox is another lie. It’s VACCINEPOX! Get it right,” reads a screenshot of a tweet shared to Instagram on Aug. 1. One of the post’s comments reads, “It will be interesting to see how many unjabbed never get it but then again that probably still wont be enough to awaken the masses.” The post generated over 300 likes in less than a week. A July 24 article from The Expose, a United Kingdom-based alternative news site, shared to Facebook also details claims that monkeypox is only ”circulating in countries” where the Pfizer vaccine has been distributed. Similar posts have been shared widely on Facebook. But the claim is baseless. Infectious disease specialists told USA TODAY that monkeypox is not linked to any of the COVID-19 vaccines. These vaccines also do not contain any live viruses, so it is not possible that monkeypox can be a side effect.
Monkeypox is most certainly not a side effect of the COVID vaccine or any vaccine for that matter, Dr. Scott Roberts, an infectious disease specialist at Yale Medicine, told USA TODAY. There is no evidence from any clinical studies to support this claim. Monkeypox outbreaks have affected the U.S. and other parts of the world even before the production and rollout of COVID-19 vaccines. The World Health Organization says that “human monkeypox was first identified in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” In 2003, 47 cases of monkeypox were identified in six states. Monkeypox is caused by infection from the monkeypox virus which comes from the Orthopoxvirus genus, according to the World Health Organization. The disease can be “transmitted to humans through close contact with an infected person or animal, or with material contaminated with the virus The COVID-19 vaccines do not contain any live viruses or monkeypox virus DNA that can transmit the disease in a person, according to Roberts. The Food and Drug Administration does not list monkeypox virus as an ingredient for the three COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the U.S.
Source: This news is originally published by usatoday