Questões de Concurso

What is Monkeypox?

      Monkeypox is a rare disease caused by infection with the monkeypox virus. Monkeypox virus is part of the same family of viruses as variola virus, the virus that causes smallpox.     Monkeypox symptoms are similar to smallpox symptoms, but milder, and monkeypox is rarely fatal. Monkeypox is not related to chickenpox. Monkeypox was discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in colonies of monkeys kept for research. Despite being named “monkeypox,” the source of the disease remains unknown. However, African rodents and non-human primates (like monkeys) might harbor the virus and infect people.

     The first human case of monkeypox was recorded in 1970. Prior to the 2022 outbreak, monkeypox had been reported in people in several central and western African countries. Previously, almost all monkeypox cases in people outside of Africa  to international travel to countries where the disease commonly occurs or through imported animals. These cases occurred on multiple continents.

(Adapted from https://www.cdc.gov)  

(Available at: https://www.helpscout.com/blog/video-knowledge-base/ – text especially adapted for this test). 

When we think about global warming and climate change, we usually think ________________how it is going to affect humans. However, we need to think about animals, too. Many species will be threatened

______________________ extinction by the end of this century if climate change is not halted. One of these is the world’s largest land predator, the polar bear. This magnificent native ___________________ the Arctic previously had no natural enemy apart _______________________man, but is now under threat from nature itself. Because of melting sea ice, it is likely that more polar bears will soon starve, warns a new study that discovered the large carnivores need to eat 60 percent more than anyone had realized.

Polar bears use floating ice as a platform to hunt seals from. They eat a large volume of food during the winter, storing enough fat under their skin to last them through the summer months. When the ice melts in the spring, many travel south to places such as Churchill, Canada, returning north when the seas freeze again, usually around October. Now, however, the winter ice is melting earlier and forming later. The bears’ store of fat runs out, and some starve to death. Other bears are drowning, because many of the ice platforms have melted, and some bears have to swim over a hundred kilometres from one ice platform to another. Due to exhaustion or stormy weather, some never make it to their destinations.