China News Service, May 23. According to the official website of the United Nations on the 22nd, the World Health Organization said that since May 13, 12 countries around the world where monkeypox virus is not endemic have reported 92 confirmed cases and 28 suspected cases.
Available information suggests that human-to-human transmission is occurring among people who have had close physical contact with symptomatic cases.
FILE PHOTO: A 2003 electron microscope image from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows a monkeypox virus particle.
The data show that these confirmed and suspected cases are mainly from the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal, with the rest distributed in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States.
So far, no related deaths have been reported.
WHO expects that as surveillance expands, more cases may be detected in the future in countries where cases have been reported and in other countries.
Monkeypox is a rare viral zoonotic disease (a virus transmitted from animals to people) with symptoms similar to those observed in the past in smallpox patients, but with less clinical severity, according to the United Nations website.
With the eradication of smallpox in 1980 and the subsequent cessation of vaccination against smallpox, monkeypox became the most serious orthopox virus.
Before the current outbreak, monkeypox cases were scattered in tropical rainforests in central and western Africa.