Ali L Alhouri¹, Shahm L Alhouri² and Rim M Harfouch³*

¹Faculty of Pharmacy, Al Andalus University for Medical Sciences, Tartous, Syria

*Corresponding Author: Rim M Harfouch, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Al-Sham private University (ASPU), Syria.

Received: October 21, 2022; Published: January 27, 2023

Abstract

Background: The world witnessed an unprecedented spread of monkeypoxin May 2022, which is a viral disease caused by Monkeypox virus, and rumors spread about it in the social media and news [1].

Methods: This study is conducted to show the attitude of the Syrian society against the monkeypox virus by spreading an online questionnaire to study the percentage of Syrians’ concern and worries about this disease globally and locally. The online questionnaire questions were based on a similar article, which is for a study conducted in South Nigeria to study the extent to which people know about monkeypox [2].

Then we used Google Form to create and distribute the questionnaire to a range of the Syrian population, then the results were analyzed and a descriptive statistic was conducted for them, then the data charts were made by using Excel Microsoft Office 2013.

Results: The results of the questionnaire were discussed from the following points of view: Percentage of people afraid of monkeypox spreading, reasons why people are afraid of monkeypox, The percentage of people who expect monkeypox to become a pandemic, The percentage of people who think that the Syrian health system will be able to deal with this disease, and source of information about monkeypox.

Discussion: There is a good percentage of Syrians worried and afraid of the turning of the smallpox into a pandemic and its spread in Syria. Therefore, several steps should be taken in order to prevent the outbreak of monkeypox in Syria, and the role of the public health profession in Syria must be empowered in order to facing this disease.

Keywords: Monkeypox; Syria; Virus; Questionnaire

References

1. Beer Ellen M and V Bhargavi Rao. "A systematic review of the epidemiology of human monkeypox outbreaks and implications for outbreak strategy”. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases10 (2019): e0007791.
2. Wogu Joseph Oluchukwu., et al. "Assessment of media reportage of monkeypox in southern Nigeria”. Medicine5 (2020).
3. Reynolds Mary G., et al. "Clinical manifestations of human monkeypox influenced by route of infection”. The Journal of Infectious Diseases6 (2006): 773-780.
4. Huhn Gregory D., et al. "Clinical characteristics of human monkeypox, and risk factors for severe disease”. Clinical Infectious Diseases12 (2005): 1742-1751.
5. Fine PEM., et al. "The transmission potential of monkeypox virus in human populations”. International Journal of Epidemiology3 (1988): 643-650.
6. Grant Rebecca., et al. "Modelling human-to-human transmission of monkeypox”. Bulletin of the World Health Organization9 (2020): 638.
7. Khodakevich L., et al. "The role of squirrels in sustaining monkeypox virus transmission”. Tropical and Geographical Medicine 2 (1987): 115-122.
8. Nguyen Phi-Yen., et al. "Reemergence of human monkeypox and declining population immunity in the context of urbanization, Nigeria, 2017–2020”. Emerging Infectious Diseases4 (2021): 1007.
9. Ježek Z., et al. "Human monkeypox: clinical features of 282 patients”. Journal of Infectious Diseases2 (1987): 293-298.
10. Roess Amira A., et al. "Assessing the effectiveness of a community intervention for monkeypox prevention in the Congo basin”. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases10 (2011): e1356.
11. Petersen Eskild., et al. "Human monkeypox: epidemiologic and clinical characteristics, diagnosis, and prevention”. Infectious Disease Clinics4 (2019): 1027-1043.

Citation

Citation: Rim M Harfouch., et al. “A Questionnaire to Study the Extent of Worry and Fear of the Syrian Community About the Spread of Monkeypox Globally". Acta Scientific Microbiology 6.2 (2023): 103-108.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Rim M Harfouch., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.