Dr. Sylvie Briand, WHO’s director of pandemic and epidemic diseases said, “the first sequencing of the virus shows that the strain is not different from the strains we can find in endemic countries and (this outbreak) is probably due more to a change in human behavior.”
Monkeypox is posing as a new threat as its confirmed cases are inching toward the 200 mark. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that so far nearly 200 cases of monkeypox have been registered in more than 20 countries. But at the same time, the WHO also described the epidemic as containable.
The UN health agency on May 27 said “there are still many unanswered questions about what triggered the unprecedented outbreak of monkeypox outside of Africa, but there is no evidence that any genetic changes in the virus are responsible.”
Dr. Sylvie Briand, WHO’s director of pandemic and epidemic diseases said, “the first sequencing of the virus shows that the strain is not different from the strains we can find in endemic countries and (this outbreak) is probably due more to a change in human behavior.”
Countries that have reported the monkeypox cases include Britain, Germany, Canada, US, Israel, Switzerland, Austria, and many more. These countries have also kicked off the research to fathom whether smallpox vaccines could be used to curb the outbreak.
Dr. Rosamund Lewis, head of WHO’s smallpox department, opines that there is no need for mass vaccination as the disease does not spread quite easily as it requires skin-to-skin touch to spread.
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