The WHO said the transmission took place through “close physical contact: skin-to-skin contact”,
Geneva, Switzerland:
Outbreaks of monkeypox in non-endemic countries can be controlled and human-to-human transmission has been halted, the World Health Organization said Monday.
So far, less than 200 confirmed and suspected cases have been registered, said Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the WHO’s Emerging Diseases.
“This is a manageable situation, especially in the countries where we see these outbreaks happening all over Europe, as well as in North America,” Van Kerch said in a live interview on the UN Health Agency’s social media channels.
“We want to stop the person-to-person transmission. We can do this in non-endemic countries.
“We are in a situation where we can use public health tools for early identification, sustained isolation of cases.
“We can stop the person-to-person transmission.”
Van Kerhove said the transmission took place through “close physical contact: skin-to-skin contact” and that most of the people identified so far had not had a severe case of the disease.
Rosamund Lewis, who heads the smallpox secretariat in the WHO emergency program, said monkeypox has been known for at least 40 years and several cases of travelers from endemic regions have occurred in Europe over the past five years.
However, “this is the first time we have seen cases in many countries at the same time and people who have not traveled to endemic regions in Africa,” she said.
She cites Nigeria, Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“It’s mostly in the animal kingdom in the woods. Now we see it more in the urban areas,” she said.
Mutation studies
Lewis said it was not yet known if the virus had mutated, but viruses from the broader group of orthopoxviruses “are reluctant to mutate and tend to be quite stable.”
“We still have no evidence that there is a mutation in the virus itself,” she said. Virologists will study the first genomic sequences of the virus, she added.
Van Kerkhove said research, epidemiology, diagnosis, therapy and vaccines would be discussed at a major global meeting next week.
Andy Seal, strategy advisor to the WHO’s global programs on HIV, hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections, stressed that although the virus can be caught through sexual activity, it is not a sexually transmitted disease.
“Although we have seen some cases of men having sex with men, it is not a gay disease, as some people on social media have tried to put it. This is simply not the case.
“This demographic is usually a demographic that really cares about health screening … They’ve been proactive in responding to unusual symptoms.
“Anyone can get monkeypox from close contact.”
Van Kerch added that with the expansion of the monitoring, experts expect to see more cases.
(This story was not edited by NDTV staff and is automatically generated by a syndicated channel.)
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