Monkeypox cases could be ‘tip of iceberg’, says WHO

The 200 cases of monkeypox registered in recent weeks outside the countries where the disease usually circulates could be the “tip of the iceberg”, warned this Friday (27) the World Health Organization (WHO), which, however, warned that there is no reason for “panic”.

“We don’t know if we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg,” acknowledged Sylvie Briand, WHO’s head of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, during an information session.

Experts are now trying to determine the causes of this “unusual situation”, he added.

Preliminary investigations do not seem to indicate that the virus has undergone any mutations and, for Briand, it is possible to stop the spread.

“We have a good opportunity to stop the transmission now,” he said. “If we implement the right measures, we will probably be able to contain this easily.”

The United Kingdom was the first country to draw attention to cases of the disease, on May 7. Since then, about 200 have been reported to the WHO from countries where the virus is not endemic.

The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) put the number of cases at 219.

Monkeypox is endemic in 11 countries in eastern and central Africa. But in recent weeks, cases have been reported in more than 20 other countries, including the United States, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and the European Union.

The Spanish Ministry of Health reported this Friday (27) a total of 98 cases so far, slightly more than the United Kingdom, where there are 90 confirmed infections.

In Portugal, the number of cases is 74, according to the health authorities this Friday. All those infected are men and most are under 40, they said.

There’s no reason to panic

“We are still at the beginning of this event,” Briand told representatives of member states attending the World Health Assembly in Geneva.

“We know there will be more cases in the coming days,” he said, although he stressed that there was no reason to spread “panic”.

“It’s not a disease that should worry the general public. It’s not Covid or any other fast-spreading disease,” he said.

Monkeypox belongs to the same family as smallpox, which killed millions of people a year before being eradicated in 1980.

But monkeypox is much less serious and has a fatality rate of between 3% and 6%, depending on the cases. Most infected people recover in three or four weeks.

Early symptoms include fever, headache, and back muscle pain.

Then there are rashes, lesions, pustules, and finally, scabs.

Several experts have pointed out that while the virus can be contracted during sexual intercourse, it is not a sexually transmitted disease.

Transmission requires close and prolonged contact between two people and occurs mainly through saliva and pus from skin lesions that appear during infection.

For now, there are not many treatment possibilities, but there are some antivirals developed against smallpox, including one that was recently approved by the European Medicines Agency, Briand pointed out.

It is also proven that vaccines developed for smallpox are 85% effective in preventing monkeypox.