Three conspiracy theories about the origins of monkeypox

With the outbreak of monkeypox now reported in at least a dozen countries, speculation of the origin of the viral disease have been making the rounds on social media.

Public health authorities in Europe and North America are investigating over 100 suspected and confirmed cases of the viral infection in the worst outbreak of the virus outside of Africa, where it is endemic.

So far, three conspiracy theories have emerged since the viral disease’s spread across the globe:

Chimpanzee adenovirus vector in the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine causes monkeypox

Claims that the outbreak of monkeypox was caused by using a chimpanzee adenovirus vector in the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine have been gaining traction online.

One person on Twitter, a British MP, wrote on May 20: “Who is surprised that after millions of people have been injected with genetically modified chimp virus, there is now an outbreak of monkeypox?” His post has since received nearly 2,000 retweets and has been liked over 6,000 times.

The same suggestion has also been echoed elsewhere on Twitter, as well as Facebook, with users highlighting a list of ingredients making up the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.

While it is true that the AstraZeneca vaccine uses a chimpanzee adenovirus vector in its formula, it is not connected to monkeypox, Reuters Fact Check clarified. Monkeypox is caused by the monkeypox virus, according to the World Health Organization.

“It is wholly different from monkeypox and there is no possibility whatsoever that the two are linked,” said Ian Jones, professor of virology at the University of Reading.

“The virus used in the AZ vaccine is an adenovirus that has been mutated to prevent it (from) growing in human cells,” he said.

Since there is little if any immunity to it among humans, it can be used as a vaccine, or vaccine vector, he said. “All the vector does is carry the vaccine component into human cells, it does not establish any sort of infection itself.”

Jones’ words were echoed by experts at Meedan Health Desk, a group of public health scientists working to tackle medical misinformation online, who told Reuters: “Scientists use a chimpanzee adenovirus as a vector — a way to get instructions for making virus-fighting antigens into the body.”

“It should be noted that chimpanzees are not monkeys,” Meedan added.

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The U.S. let loose monkeypox swirl in China  

Chinese social media users are speculating the U.S. could be the source of monkeypox infections.

The viral infection has been highlighted as a trending topic on popular social media platform Weibo for the past three days with a hashtag on the U.S. reporting two suspected monkeypox cases attracting more than 51 million views as of Monday.

While Chinese state media has refrained from accusing the U.S. of intentionally spreading monkeypox — an accusation it made about COVID-19 — many social media users haven’t held back.

A 2021 report on biosecurity preparedness planning by a U.S. non-government organization, Nuclear Threat Initiative, which included a scenario of a monkeypox pandemic, has been taken out of context to suggest that the U.S. government knew the outbreak was coming.

Nationalist influencer Shu Chang, who has 6.41 million Weibo followers, deliberately misconstrued the report and posted that it showed “a plan by the U.S. to leak bioengineered monkeypox virus.”

Disinformation over health has been rife in China and the U.S. during the COVID pandemic. The two countries had engaged in a spat over the origins of the virus. Beijing made unsubstantiated claims the US engineered the virus at a military base, while some U.S. media outlets questioned whether the virus may have leaked from a research facility in Wuhan, the city where COVID was first detected.

Monkeypox likely spread by sex at two raves in Europe

A leading adviser to the WHO described the unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox in developed countries as “a random event” that appears to have been caused by sexual activity at two recent raves in Europe.

Dr. David Heymann, who formerly headed WHO’s emergencies department, told The Associated Press that the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission at raves held in Spain and Belgium.

“We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission,” said Heymann.

This is an unlikely development from the disease’s typical pattern of spread in central and western Africa, where people are typically infected by animals such as wild rodents and primates.

Health officials say most of the known cases in Europe have been among men who have sex with men, but anyone can be infected through close contact with a sick person, their clothing or bedsheets. Scientists say it will be difficult to disentangle whether the spread is being driven by sex or merely close contact.

With additional reporting from Bloomberg, Reuters and Associated Press