Today, Friday, the World Health Organization warned that the 200 cases of monkeypox, which were detected in recent weeks in countries where the virus does not usually spread, could be the “tip of the iceberg”.
“We don’t know if we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg,” said Sylvie Briand, director of WHO’s International Preparedness Department for Infectious Risks, in a presentation at the World Health Assembly in Geneva on the “uncommon” spread of the virus.
Briand added that experts are trying to determine the cause of this “unusual situation”, and preliminary results show that there is no mutation or mutation in the monkeypox virus.
“We have a window of opportunity to stop the outbreak now… If we take appropriate measures now, we can probably contain it quickly,” she said.
“We are currently at the beginning of this event,” the WHO official explained, adding, “We know that more cases will appear in the coming days,” but “this is not a disease that the general public should worry about, it is not Covid or other diseases that spread rapidly.” .
The number of confirmed cases of monkeypox virus around the world reached 219, on Wednesday, outside the countries where the disease is endemic, according to a report issued by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
Most of the infections are concentrated in Europe, which has recorded 191 cases, including 118 in the European Union.
The majority of infections were recorded in three European countries: the United Kingdom, where the first unusual cases were detected in early May (71 cases), Spain (51) and Portugal (37), according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.
On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considered the probability of monkeypox transmission in the general population “extremely low.”
This disease is endemic in 11 countries in West and Central Africa, and it is from the smallpox family, which was eradicated about forty years ago, but it is less dangerous than it.
It causes, at first, a high temperature and quickly develops into a rash with blisters.
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