Global health officials have elevated the threat of monkeypox to’moderate,’ as the tropical virus spreads to dozens more countries.
The outbreak has become increasingly concerning, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), because it is the first time clusters of cases have been reported simultaneously in multiple locations and without any known links to Africa, where the virus is endemic.
The outbreak, which began in early May and has now spread to 24 nations, has been diagnosed in 106 Britons, the majority of whom are men who have had sex with other men. The findings are ‘likely to be an underestimate,’ according to the WHO.
There are growing concerns the virus will spill into wild animals and never be eradicated. That would also raise the risk of monkeypox mutating.
The WHO said public health risk from the virus ‘could become high’ if it spreads to more vulnerable groups who are at higher risk of becoming very unwell, including young children and immunosuppressed people.
The ‘sudden appearance’ and ‘wide geographic scope’ of cases suggests widespread human transmission of the virus — which spreads through skin-to-skin contact and an infected persons’ droplets — is underway, the WHO said.
WHO chiefs also warned the surge in monkeypox infections suggests the virus ‘may have been circulating unrecognised for several weeks or longer’.
UK health chiefs have warned that music festivals could be monkeypox super-spread events this summer, including at the two-day Mighty Hoopla event in London because it will ‘attract a lot of queer people’.
It comes as the UK Government’s scientific advisers warned that pet hamsters, rabbits and other rodents owned by infected patients should be isolated for three weeks.
The Human Animal Infections and Risk Surveillance (HAIRS) group said these animals were at the highest risk of catching the virus, and they could spread it into wild populations.
Experts fear that if the virus is unleashed into wild animal populations then it will become endemic and be hard to eradicate, as is the case in parts of western and central Africa.