MONKEYPOX OUTBREAK IS NOT THE NEXT PANDEMIC, SAY EXPERTS

▶ The virus spreading globally causes only moderate symptoms and a vaccine already exists

The World Health Organisation has described the monkeypox outbreak as “atypical”, but two scientists have said it is not the next pandemic.

Prof David Heymann, an expert on infectious diseases, said it would not spread the same way as the coronavirus.

“This will not be a pandemic as we know pandemics, but it certainly is possible that this disease has spread in many different parts of the world already and we are just beginning to identify it,” he said on Friday.

“It is not transmitted by air, we don’t believe, so it’s not a respiratory infection like Sars-Coronavirus-2 [which leads to Covid-19], so it will not spread in the same manner.”

Prof Heymann, former WHO assistant director general for health security and environment, said it was transmitted by close contact with a sore.

“If there is close contact, physical contact, there is a chance the virus could spread from the lesion on one person to another person and could enter through a break in the skin or through a mucous membrane.

“This virus doesn’t transmit easily. It is a quite rare disease which has now become more common.”

There are two types of the virus, Prof Heymann said. There is a virus in Central Africa which is very lethal, has 10 per cent fatality and causes a disease that looks like smallpox.

“Fortunately, that disease has not spread outside of Africa yet, and hopefully it won’t, because people are very sick and they don’t travel,” he said.

“The disease that is occurring in Europe and North America is a West African virus-type strain which is very moderate.

“It causes skin rash, maybe one or two lesions on the skin, and it can cause a fever and swollen lymph nodes, swollen glands and muscle aches, but it is not fatal in most cases.”

This type of the virus is fatal in less than 1 per cent of those infected, Prof Heymann said.

“They should beware that this is spreading and they should be very careful when they have physical contact of any type.

“A handshake would only be dangerous if there is a pox virus lesion on the hand of one of the people who shakes, so they have to do their own risk assessment.”

He said it was not known whether there were asymptomatic infections or if every infection caused skin lesions.

Dr Hans Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, said monkeypox cases in several European countries, the US, Canada and Australia were atypical for several reasons.

Firstly, the rare viral disease is spreading among people with no relevant travel history to areas where monkeypox is endemic, such as in West or Central Africa, he said on Friday.

He said that most initial cases were being detected through sexual health services. “Geographically dispersed” outbreaks suggested “transmission may have been continuing for some time”.

Prof Paul Hunter, of the UK’s University of East Anglia, an expert in emerging infectious diseases, said it was “extremely unlikely” that monkeypox would become a pandemic.

“This isn’t a Covid situation at all and if we get the vaccination right, we should be able to bring it under control fairly quickly,” he said.

The rare viral disease is spreading among people with no relevant travel history to areas where monkeypox is endemic