The World Health Organization said on the 17th that more than 35,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 92 countries and regions around the world, including 12 deaths.

　　WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reported the above at a regular news conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

He said there were nearly 7,500 new cases of monkeypox last week, a 20 percent increase from the previous week, with the vast majority of them coming from Europe and the Americas, mostly among men who have sex with men.

　　According to Agence France-Presse, two WHO officials have called for precautions to prevent the virus from being transmitted to animals and mutating in response to a dog in France suspected of being infected with the monkeypox virus by its owner.

　　Rosamund Lewis, WHO's technical lead on monkeypox, said this was the first reported case of human-to-animal transmission of monkeypox virus and "is believed to be the first case of canine infection (monkeypox)" .

　　Lewis said public health experts have long believed that there is a theoretical risk of monkeypox virus being passed from humans to animals, and public health agencies have been recommending that infected people be separated from pets.

She cautioned that waste from infected people should be handled with care to avoid infecting animals outside the home, such as rodents.

Once the monkeypox virus is transmitted to animal groups, it can mutate in "different environments".

　　Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO's emergency program, believes that monkeypox virus infection in domestic pets is not a problem, and the more dangerous situation is that the virus spreads to densely populated mammals, "when one animal is transmitted to another one after another. In the process, the virus will evolve rapidly.”

　　According to a paper recently published in the British "Lancet" magazine, after two French men showed symptoms of monkeypox virus infection, their pet dogs who lived with them were also infected with monkeypox virus.

　　The World Health Organization says monkeypox can be infected in a variety of animals, including some rodents and several species of monkeys.

The natural host of monkeypox virus has not been identified, but rodents are the most likely.

　　Scientists first discovered the virus in 1958 in a group of monkeys used for research, when the monkeys developed a "pox-like" infectious disease, hence the name monkeypox virus.

The first case of human infection with monkeypox virus was found in Congo (DRC) in 1970, after which the virus was mainly prevalent in western and central Africa.

Since May this year, many countries and regions outside Africa have reported monkeypox cases one after another.

The World Health Organization declared on July 23 that the monkeypox outbreak constitutes a "public health emergency of international concern".