In what Germany describes as Europe’s biggest ever outbreak, cases have been reported in at least eight European countries – Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK – as well as in the United States, Canada and Australia.
First identified in monkeys, the disease is usually spread by close contact and has rarely spread outside of Africa, so this series of cases has raised concerns.
However, scientists do not expect the epidemic to turn into a pandemic like COVID-19, since the virus does not spread as easily as SARS-COV-2.
Monkeypox is usually a mild viral illness, characterized by symptoms of fever as well as a distinctive bumpy skin rash.
“With several confirmed cases in the UK, Spain and Portugal, this is the largest and most widespread outbreak of monkeypox ever seen in Europe,” said the German Armed Forces Medical Service, which detected its first case in the country on Friday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) committee to meet is the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Potential Pandemic and Epidemic Infectious Hazards (STAG-IH), which advises on infectious hazards that may constitute a threat to global health.
He will not be responsible for deciding whether the outbreak should be declared a public health emergency of international concern, WHO’s highest form of alert, which is currently applied to the COVID-19 pandemic.
COMMUNITY SPREAD
Fabian Leendertz of the Robert Koch Institute described the outbreak as an epidemic.
“However, this outbreak is very unlikely to last for long. Cases can be isolated well through contact tracing and there are also effective drugs and vaccines that can be used if needed,” he said.
Nonetheless, the European head of the WHO said he fears infections will accelerate in the region as people gather for parties and festivals during the summer months.
There is no specific vaccine for monkeypox, but data shows that vaccines used to eradicate smallpox are up to 85% effective against monkeypox, according to the WHO.
British authorities said on Thursday they had offered a smallpox vaccine to some healthcare workers and others who may have been exposed to monkeypox.
Since 1970, cases of monkeypox have been reported in 11 African countries. Nigeria has been experiencing a major outbreak since 2017 – since the start of the year, 46 suspected cases have been identified, of which 15 have since been confirmed, according to the WHO.
The first European case was confirmed on May 7 in a person who returned to England from Nigeria.
Since then, more than 100 cases have been confirmed outside Africa, according to a tracking tool produced by an academic at the University of Oxford. https://twitter.com/MOUGK/status/1527055553876348928
Many of these cases are unrelated to travel to the mainland. Therefore, the cause of this outbreak is unclear, although health authorities have said there is potentially some degree of community spread.
SEXUAL HEALTH CLINICS
The WHO said the first cases were unusual for three reasons: all but one have no history of travel to areas where monkeypox is endemic; most are detected by sexual health services and among men who have sex with men, and the wide geographical distribution in Europe and beyond suggests that transmission may have occurred for some time.
In Britain, where 20 cases have now been confirmed, the UK Health Security Agency said recent cases in the country have mainly been in men who identify as gay, bisexual or have sex with men.
The 14 cases in Portugal were all detected in sexual health clinics and were men between the ages of 20 and 40 who identified as gay, bisexual or who have sex with men.
Spanish health authorities said 23 new cases were confirmed on Friday, mostly in the Madrid region where most infections have been linked to an adult sauna outbreak.
It was too early to say whether the disease turned into a sexually transmitted disease, said Alessio D’Amato, health commissioner for Italy’s Lazio region. Three cases have been reported so far in the country.
Sexual contact, by definition, is close contact, added Stuart Neil, professor of virology at Kings College London.
“The idea that there is some sort of sexual transmission in this case, I think, is a bit of a stretch,” he said.
Scientists are sequencing the virus from different cases to see if they are linked, the WHO said. The agency should provide an update soon.