No evidence monkeypox virus has mutated: WHO

GENEVA/TOKYO: The World Health Organization (WHO) does not have evidence that the monkeypox virus has mutated, a senior executive at the UN agency said on Monday, noting the infectious disease that is endemic in west and central Africa has tended not to change.

Rosamund Lewis, head of the smallpox secretariat which is part of the WHO Emergencies Programme, told a briefing that mutations are typically lower with this virus, although genome sequencing of cases will help inform understanding of the current outbreak.

The more than 100 suspected and confirmed cases in the recent outbreak in Europe and North America have not been severe, the WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonoses lead and technical lead on Covid-19, Maria van Kerkhove, said. “This is a containable situation,” she said. The outbreaks are atypical, according to the WHO, as they are occurring in countries where the virus does not regularly circulate. Scientists are seeking to understand the origin of the cases and whether anything about the virus has changed.

Biden reassures citizens on Monkeypox outbreak

US President Joe Biden sought to reassure Americans that the current monkeypox outbreak was unlikely to cause a pandemic on the scale of Covid.

“I just don’t think it rises to the level of the kind of concern that existed with Covid-19,” he told reporters on Monday in Tokyo at a joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The US has enough small pox vaccine stockpiled to deal with the outbreak, Biden said. Still, he said people should be cautious.

The president struck a more cautious note a day after telling reporters that the outbreak was “something everyone should be concerned about”, and that if it “were to spread, it would be consequential”.