The government takes the subject “very seriously”.
The UK is registering new cases of monkeypox every day, an official with the UK Health Security Agency said on Sunday.
“We are detecting more cases every day,” Susan Hopkins, the chief medical officer of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), told the BBC.
Last week, twenty patients were identified and a new report will be published on Monday "with the weekend figures", she said.
“The vast majority of people heal on their own”
Several European countries have identified cases of monkeypox, which could accelerate in Europe, said Friday a regional official of the World Health Organization (WHO).
"In the cases we've seen so far in the UK, the vast majority of people recover on their own," said Susan Hopkins.
She described monkeypox as “a new infectious disease that is spreading in our community” with “cases that have no identified contact with an individual coming from West Africa”, where the disease was previously present. .
An “extremely low” risk for the population
Transmission is seen "primarily in individuals who identify as gay or bisexual or in men who have sex with men", she said, noting that transmission can be explained by "frequent contact narrow as they may have".
She called for being attentive to the slightest symptom while stressing that the risk for the population as a whole was “extremely low”.
While there is no vaccine for monkeypox, which is self-curing, a smallpox vaccine can be used to protect contact cases, Dr Hopkins explained.
Education Minister Nadhim Zahawi told the same TV channel that the government was taking the matter "very, very seriously" and that the UK had started buying doses of smallpox vaccine.
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