Mpox: symptoms of disease
At the latest three weeks after infection, the first symptoms of the disease appear. These include:
- Acute onset of fever (>38.5°C)
- Acute rash or single lesion (vesicles, then pustules, and finally crusts, similar to smallpox)
- Headache
- Swollen lymph nodes
- Muscle and body aches
- back pain
- expressed weakness
- Inflammation of the mucosa of the rectum
- Inflammation of the glans penis
The expression of symptoms is individual. In the current outbreak, some cases have only isolated or mild symptoms. Often the rash is discrete, with only a few individual vesicles or pustules. In some cases, the rash is limited to the genital region only. In some sufferers, there is no rash at all.
MPX: Differential diagnoses
The following differential diagnoses (list is not exhaustive) can also explain the clinical picture of acute exanthema:
- allergic reaction (for example, to plants)
- bacterial skin infections,
- Chancroid (ulcus molle),
- Chikungunya,
- Dengue,
- disseminated gonococcal infection,
- Granuloma inguinale,
- Herpes simplex,
- Herpes zoster,
- Lymphogranuloma venereum,
- Measles,
- Molluscum contagiosum,
- primary or secondary syphilis,
- Varizella zoster,
- Zika
- and any other locally relevant common causes of maculopapular or vesicular efflorescence