In view of the unusual spread of monkeypox, the World Health Organization (WHO) is urging various measures, but sees no reason for alarm.
"This is not a disease that should worry the public.
It's not about Covid," said WHO expert Sylvie Briand on Friday in Geneva at a briefing for WHO member countries.
Nevertheless, states should quickly identify those who are ill and isolate those affected.
The WHO assumes that most cases are mild.
However, pregnant women, children and people with weak immune systems have a higher risk of a severe course.
"We have a good window of opportunity to stop the transmission now," said Briand.
It is unclear, however, how large the stocks of vaccines against smallpox are, which should also help against monkeypox.
The WHO expects the number of cases to continue to rise.
Monkeypox has now appeared in more than 20 countries.
"We don't know if we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg," Briand said.
According to current information, there is still no clear information about the cause of the current development.
Monkeypox vaccination should be a case-by-case decision
The epidemiologist Gérard Krause does not expect vaccination against monkeypox for the general population.
"As far as is currently foreseeable, the vaccination will only ever be an individual case decision," said the head of the epidemiology department at the Braunschweig Helmholtz Center for Infection Research (HZI) on Friday at a press briefing by the Science Media Center (SMC).
"This is certainly not something that is generally recommended by Stiko and then offered on a broad basis." Vaccination against monkeypox will be a focused instrument for special situations in a limited, clearly defined population group, says Krause.
The Munich infectiologist Clemens Wendtner explained at the briefing that the virus, which has recently been increasingly detected in Europe, was recently also detected in semen.
"Ultimately, we are also dealing with a sexually transmitted disease," said the head of the special unit for highly contagious life-threatening infections at the Schwabing Clinic, where the first German monkeypox patient is currently being isolated.
The physician Roman Wölfel, who heads the Bundeswehr Institute for Microbiology in Munich, reported on a case in which a significantly higher virus concentration was detected in the semen than in the blood.
In most cases, however, the monkeypox virus was transmitted through close physical contact, the experts emphasized.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) also assumes this transmission path.
According to experts, the fact that cases are currently mainly known among men who have sex with men could be related, among other things, to several international events at which infections occurred.
The RKI emphasizes: "The risk of becoming infected with monkeypox is not limited to sexually active people or men who have sex with men." The overall risk from the disease is considered by health authorities to be moderate for people with multiple sexual partners and for those broader population rated as low.