Jonathan Ball

The importance of getting our children immunized cannot be overst... by Jonathan Ball

The importance of getting our children immunized cannot be overstated.

The fact that only one of 50 contacts of the initial monkeypox-infected patient has been infected shows how poorly infectious the virus is, it is wrong to think that we are on the brink of a nationwide outbreak.

We know Ebola can linger for many months after visible symptoms have cleared ... But this is frankly staggering.

This confirms that Ebola virus can persist in the genital tract for a considerable length of time, months after the virus has disappeared from the blood, and worryingly shows that this long-lived reservoir is a potential source of new infections.

We would need to see all of the genetic data to get a feel for how related the human and pangolin viruses are, and also gain an understanding of how prevalent this virus is in pangolins and whether or not these were being sold in the Wuhan wet markets.