“And then there were these international events that seeded the outbreak around the world, into the U.S. “It's very possible there was somebody who got infected, developed lesions on the genitals, hands or somewhere else, and then spread it to others when there was sexual or close, physical contact,” Heymann hypothesised. Heymann, who is also a professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the monkeypox outbreak was likely a random event that might be traceable to a single infection.
UK officials have said “a notable proportion” of the cases in Britain and Europe have been in young men with no history of travel to Africa and who are gay, bisexual or have sex with men.Īuthorities in Portugal and Spain also said their cases were in men who mostly had sex with other men and whose infections were picked up when they sought help for lesions at sexual health clinics. On Sunday, the chief medical adviser of Britain's Health Security Agency, Dr Susan Hopkins, said she expected more monkeypox cases to be identified in the country “on a daily basis”. “By nature, sexual activity involves intimate contact, which one would expect to increase the likelihood of transmission, whatever a person's sexual orientation and irrespective of the mode of transmission," said Mike Skinner, a virologist at Imperial College London. Other scientists have pointed out that it will be difficult to disentangle whether it is sex itself or the close contact related to sex that has driven the recent spread of monkeypox across Europe. The agency's Europe director warned that as summer begins across the continent, mass gatherings, festivals and parties could accelerate the spread of monkeypox. The UN agency said the outbreak is “a highly unusual event” and said the fact that cases are being seen in so many different countries suggests the disease may have been silently spreading for some time. WHO said confirmed cases have so far been the less severe West African group of monkeypox viruses and appeared to be linked to a virus that was first detected in exported cases from Nigeria to Britain, Israel and Singapore in 2018-2019. In recent years, the disease has been fatal in up to 6 per cent of infections, but no deaths have been reported among the current cases. Vaccines against smallpox, a related disease, are also effective in preventing monkeypox and some antiviral drugs are being developed. Most people recover from the disease within several weeks without requiring hospitalisation.
It can be spread through close contact with an infected person or their clothing or bedsheets, but sexual transmission has not yet been documented.
Monkeypox typically causes fever, chills, rash, and lesions on the face or genitals. Heymann chaired an urgent meeting of WHO's advisory group on infectious disease threats on Friday to assess the ongoing epidemic and said there was no evidence to suggest that monkeypox might have mutated into a more infectious form. Madrid's senior health official said on Monday that the Spanish capital has recorded 30 confirmed cases so far.Įnrique Ruiz Escudero said authorities are investigating possible links between a recent Gay Pride event in the Canary Islands, which drew some 80,000 people, and cases at a Madrid sauna. On Monday, Denmark announced its first case and Portugal revised its total upwards to 37 and Italy reported one further infection. To date, WHO has recorded more than 90 cases of monkeypox in a dozen countries including Britain, Spain, Israel, France, Switzerland, the US and Australia. The four confirmed cases in Germany have been linked to exposure at “party events including on Gran Canaria and in Berlin, where sexual activity took place, said the report. A German government report to lawmakers, obtained by the AP, said it expected to see further cases and that the risk of catching monkeypox "mainly appears to lie with sexual contacts among men”.