World Health Organization Leader on Outbreak: Mpox isn't the New COVID-19
Different from the Coronavirus variant, SARS-CoV-2, which surfaced at the tail end of 2019, people had prior understanding of how to battle the monkeypox virus, as Kluge stated. However, there's less clarity regarding the workings of the monkeypox variant 1 compared to variant 2, thus requiring more data to be gathered.
The monkeypox virus was initially identified in lab monkeys in Denmark back in 1958, and it was commonly known as monkey pox. The widely known strain 1a was primarily spread from animals to humans.
Catherine Smallwood, who heads the WHO's emergency program, pointed out that there's no recorded transmission of strain 1b from animals to humans. Strain 1b appears to be transmitted "exclusively" from one person to another - and seemingly more easily than other monkeypox variants. At present, strain 1b is present in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other African countries like Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda.
The WHO has declared the highest alert level due to the propagation of the new monkeypox subgroup 1b in these regions. This specific variant of the monkeypox virus predominantly seems to be transmitted through sexual contact, whereas the monkeypox variant 1 spreads through various contacts.
Kluge acknowledged that the transmission protocols of monkeypox are "not crystal clear". Nevertheless, the risk of infection for the common population remains "low". There's no need for lockdown measures akin to those during the coronavirus pandemic, he concluded.
The WHO also doesn't suggest wearing masks or mass vaccinations. They only endorse vaccination against monkeypox as a precautionary measure for the most susceptible population groups during an outbreak. According to the WHO, there have been two vaccines accessible for some time: MVA-BN from the Danish-German pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic, and the vaccine LC16 developed on behalf of the Japanese government.
The original monkeypox virus, which was initially identified in lab monkeys in Denmark, is different from the corona, as it was commonly known as monkey pox and primarily spread from animals to humans. Despite the low risk of infection for the common population, the WHO has declared an alert level due to the propagation of the new monkeypox subgroup 1b, which predominantly seems to be transmitted through sexual contact, unlike the original monkeypox strain 1.
