LONDON –
The World Health Organization was due to hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the recent outbreak of monkeypox, a viral infection more common in West and Central Africa, after more than 100 cases were confirmed or suspected in Europe.
In what Germany described as the largest outbreak in Europe, cases have already been confirmed in at least five countries – the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy, as well as the United States, Canada and Australia.
Originally identified in monkeys, the disease usually spreads through close contact and has rarely spread outside Africa, so this series of cases has caused concern.
However, scientists do not expect the epidemic to turn into a pandemic like COVID-19, given that the virus does not spread as easily as SARS-COV-2.
Monkeypox is usually a mild viral disease characterized by symptoms of fever as well as a distinctive uneven rash.
“With several confirmed cases in the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal, it is the largest and most common outbreak of monkeypox ever observed in Europe,” said the medical service of the German Armed Forces, which opened its first case in the country. in Friday.
Fabian Leenderz of the Robert Koch Institute described the outbreak as an epidemic.
“However, it is very unlikely that this epidemic will last long. Cases can be well isolated by contact tracking, and there are also medicines and effective vaccines that can be used if needed,” he said.
There is no specific vaccine for monkeypox, but data show that vaccines used to kill smallpox are up to 85% effective against monkeypox, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
British authorities said on Thursday that they had offered a smallpox vaccine to some health workers and others who may have been exposed to monkeypox.
The WHO committee to be convened is the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Infectious Hazards with Pandemic and Epidemic Potential (STAG-IH), which advises the WHO on the risks of infections that may pose a threat to global health.
UNUSUAL cases
Since 1970, cases of monkeypox have been reported in 11 African countries. Nigeria has had a major outbreak since 2017 – so far this year there have been 46 suspicious cases, 15 of which have been confirmed since then, 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 tracker from an academic at Oxford University.
Many of the cases are not related to travel to the mainland. As a result, the cause of the outbreak is unclear, although health authorities said it was potentially prevalent in the community.
In the UK, where 20 cases have already been confirmed, the UK Health Security Agency said the latest cases in the country were mostly among men who identify themselves as gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men.
The 14 cases in Portugal, all found in sexual health clinics, also involved men who identified themselves as gay, bisexual or men who had sex with men.
Health officials in Spain said 23 new cases were confirmed on Friday, mainly in the Madrid region, where most infections are linked to an outbreak in an adult sauna.
It is too early to say whether the disease has become a sexually transmitted disease, said Alessio D’Amato, health commissioner of the Lazio region of Italy. So far, three cases have been registered in the country.
Sexual contact is by definition close contact, added Stuart Neal, a professor of virology at Kings College London.
“The idea of having some kind of sexual transmission in this, I think, is a little tense,” he said.
Scientists have sequenced the virus from different cases to see if they are related, the WHO said. The agency is expected to provide an update soon.
(Report by Jennifer Rigby and Natalie Grover in London; Twitter @NatalieGrover; additional reports by Emma Pinedo Gonzalez, Emma Farge, Catriona Demoni and Patricia Weiss; Editing by Josephine Mason and Nick McPhee)
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