While cases of monkeypox continue to increase outside endemic areas of Africa, particularly in Europe, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed on Monday an “atypical” situation but deemed it possible to “stop” this transmission of the disease between humans.
Cases have so far been confirmed in a dozen European countries but also in Australia, Canada and the United States. Nine EU countries (Austria, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Sweden) currently have 67 cases, according to the European Union’s disease agency (ECDC) .
There are currently “less than 200 confirmed and suspected cases” in these non-endemic countries, according to Maria Van Kerkhove, in charge of the fight against Covid-19 but also emerging diseases and zoonoses at the WHO.
This figure relates only to countries where the presence of monkeypox is unusual.
The WHO, however, expressed confidence in the possibility of “stopping” the transmission of the disease between humans in these “non-endemic” countries, during a question and answer session on Monday.
“It’s a situation that can be controlled, particularly in the countries where we see this outbreak happening in Europe,” Van Kerkhove said.
Early identification and isolation of cases are part of the measures recommended by the WHO and the ECDC, she stressed, adding that there were currently no serious cases.
The disease, a less dangerous cousin of smallpox, eradicated for about forty years, is endemic in 11 countries in West Africa and in Central Africa.
It first results in a high fever and quickly evolves into a rash, with the formation of scabs.
What intrigues and worries experts is the simultaneous appearance of cases in many countries, in people who, for the most part, had no direct link to the countries where the disease is endemic.