Wired Magazine’s May 24th article: “The Mystery of Monkeypox’s Global Spread” taps the expertise of ecology and evolutionary biology professor, Jamie Lloyd-Smith, to provide context for the recent outbreak of monkeypox that is now spreading through Europe, the U.K., and U.S.

Below, is an excerpt from the article.

Jamie Lloyd-Smith, a University of California, Los Angeles professor who has been studying monkeypox for more than a decade, says immunity against this family of viruses has been declining in humans ever since smallpox was eradicated in 1980.

“Eradicating smallpox stands as one of the greatest public health accomplishments of all time,” he says. “But a natural consequence of eradicating the one orthopoxvirus that circulated widely among humans, and then stopping the vaccination program that led to eradication, is that generations of people have no immune experience with any orthopoxvirus. There is no question that this makes life easier for monkeypox. It’s like a big pile of fuel that has never seen a spark.”…

Click here to read the full story in Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/mystery-monkeypox-global-spread/