GENEVA, May 24: The World Health Organization said on Monday (May 23) it expects to identify more cases of Monkeypox as it expands surveillance in countries where the disease is not typically found.
Monkeypox spreads differently from COVID-19 as it spreads through close interactions.
Some symptoms include a fever, aches and rashes that will turn into blisters. However, for most people it clears up within two to four weeks.
WHO Technical Lead for COVID-19, Maria Van Kerkhove assured that the spread is a “containable situation”.
“Transmission is really happening from close physical contact, skin to skin contact. So, it’s not, it’s quite different than COVID in that sense.
Most of the people who have been identified so far had more mild disease. But anyone they come in contact with needs to be informed so that we can prevent onwards spread. And the thing I just want to say here is that this is a containable situation,” said Kerkhove.
Additionally, there is no evidence that the Monkeypox virus has mutated.
Head of the smallpox secretariat part of the WHO emergencies programme, Rosamund Lewis, said that mutations are typically lower with this virus.
“We can say that this is a DNA virus, it’s one of the largest, if not the largest, among the largest viruses known, the mutation rate is much lower than for RNA viruses and so it’s a very stable virus.
So, we don’t yet have evidence that there is mutation in the virus itself, “ said Lewis.
Meanwhile, the more than 100 suspected and confirmed cases in the recent outbreak in Europe and North America have not been severe.
According to WHO, the outbreaks are atypical 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. – TVS
