Monkeypox conspiracy theories may be spreading faster than the virus, survey reveals

Vacutainer with monkeypox blood sample for testing. 

(© blackday - stock.adobe.com)

AUGUST 3, 2022
by Matt Higgins

PHILADELPHIA — As if dealing with a deadly pandemic isn’t bad enough, another virus has now exploded onto the scene. The World Health Organization declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency in July 2022, as cases are rising across the United States and throughout the world. While many people may fear they’ll contract the virus, it turns out few actually know all the facts about monkeypox.

Even though monkeypox has come to the public forefront and has been blasted across the news, a new national survey from the Annenberg Public Police Center finds that many Americans know little about the virus. Overall, 80 percent have seen, read, or heard something about monkeypox in the past month.

While one in five are concerned about contracting monkeypox, 48 percent don’t know whether monkeypox is more or less contagious than COVID-19. Another 66 percent are not sure or don’t believe there is a monkeypox vaccine, even though there is.

“It’s important that the public calibrate its concerns to the reality of the risk of COVID-19 and monkeypox and act appropriately,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, in a media release.

Monkeypox, discovered in 1958, is a less deadly member of the same family of viruses as smallpox. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the virus is transmitted by direct contact with an infectious skin lesion, scabs, body fluids, respiratory secretions, infected animals, or by touching items contaminated by infectious body fluids.

Worry about contracting monkeypox or Covid-19 over the next three months. Asked of 1,580 adults on the Annenberg Public Policy Center ASK survey, July 12-18, 2022. CREDIT: Annenberg Public Policy Center

Pathways to infection are a mystery to many

The survey reveals that many Americans are familiar with monkeypox but lack information about the disease and how to protect themselves. Sixty-nine percent of respondents know that monkeypox usually spreads by close contact with an infected person, however 26 percent are not sure whether that is true or false. Only 34 percent said they know that a monkeypox vaccine exists.

Fourteen percent incorrectly believe that monkeypox is as contagious as COVID, while only 36 percent correctly said that monkeypox is less contagious.

When asked about monkeypox and the COVID-19 vaccine, 67 percent think that getting the COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t increase the likelihood of contracting monkeypox. However, 28 percent were not sure. Researchers say there is no evidence that this is true.

Researchers also asked survey takers if they thought people working with animals have a higher risk of contracting monkeypox. A third said no, nine percent said yes, and 57 percent were not sure.

Another survey question revolved around the concern that there’s a higher risk of infection for men who have sex with other men. Thirty-three percent of Americans said yes, while 66 percent either said this is false or they did not know. The WHO says that most cases outside of Africa during this outbreak have been mainly among men who have sex with other men.

“The time to reduce susceptibility to misinformation about monkeypox is now,” notes Jamieson. “It is critically important that public health professionals offer anxious individuals accurate information about the ways in which this virus is transmitted and infection prevented. Vaccinating those who are at higher risk should be a national priority.”

Monkeypox conspiracy theories are already circulating

Jamieson adds that there are a number of Americans who have embraced conspiracy theories about monkeypox. The survey found that 34 percent are not sure if monkeypox was bioengineered in a lab and 12 percent believe that this is probably or definitely true. However, over half of Americans rejected that conspiracy.

Fourteen percent believe monkeypox was intentionally released into the global population, while 30 percent say they aren’t sure. One in 10 think it’s “probably or definitely true” that scientists released the virus to deflect attention away from the failures of the Biden Administration, while 19 percent are not sure. Another 21 percent of respondents are unsure if monkeypox infections are the result of 5G exposure.

“As one would expect, conspiracy theorists have incorporated monkeypox into their pre-existing beliefs that, instead of emerging through natural processes, a spreading virus must have been bioengineered, intentionally released to accomplish a political objective, or is the byproduct of exposure to a pervasive new technology such as 5G,” says Jamieson.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center surveyed 1,580 American adults from July 12-18.

Fact check: Four fakes about monkeypox

Was the monkeypox outbreak caused by AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine? Or did the virus come from a laboratory? DW looks at some of the most blatant monkeypox conspiracy myths.

Monkeypox is primarily found in rodents, monkeys are probably an intermediate host

Is it just fake news?

Claim: There are social media users who claim that monkeypox doesn't even exist. Photos used in reports that are old or show other diseases such as shingles are used to back up that claim. Numerous image comparisons are circulating, for example on Twitter.

DW Fact Check: False.

Monkeypox is real. The virus has been around since 1958. We've known since 1970 that it can also be transmitted to humans. There are recurrent outbreaks that have so far been limited to countries in West and Central Africa. There's an ongoing outbreak in Nigeria, that started in 2017, with over 500 registered cases.

The "old" images used to prove that reports of monkeypox are a hoax are mostly agency images of the disease that have been in the inventory of their respective providers for years. It is not uncommon for the same images to be used repeatedly for reports on medical issues because the overall selection is rather small.

Some Twitter users are juxtaposing monkeypox and shingles article images to prove that the monkeypox coverage is a fake.

In Australia, the Queensland government's explainer on shingles was indeed illustrated with the image from the tweet. In the case of an article on monkeypox that appeared on healthsite.com the situation is a bit more complicated: Since May 19, 2022, the text does not contain the image from the tweet, but a different one.

An older, archived version of the article from July 17, 2021, on the other hand, incorrectly showed the shingles image as an illustration for monkeypox. This error has since been corrected and the article revised. An editorial error on a website does not change the fact that monkeypox does indeed exist.

Monkeypox due to COVID vaccination?

Claim: AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine contains attenuated adenoviruses from chimpanzees as carriers for the DNA of the coronavirus spike protein. For some users, this suggests that monkeypox infections are a result of the vector vaccine. 

DW Fact Check: False.

Even though the word "monkey" may suggest a possible connection at first glance, the viruses have nothing to do with each other.

"It's called monkeypox because it was first detected in a monkey colony in 1958. But they actually come from rodents; monkeys are probably an intermediate host," explains Christine Falk, president of the German Society for Immunology.

She says that adenoviruses, including chimpanzee adenoviruses, which are the basis for vector vaccines, are a very different class of viruses than smallpox viruses — with very different characteristics.

According to Falk, these viruses can cause cold-like infections. "And there are some that have been isolated and modified from chimpanzees for use in vaccines so that our bodies don't have prior immunity, as can be the case with human adenoviruses."Falk and other experts are adamant that COVID-19 vaccines have nothing to do with the monkeypox outbreak.

Monkeypox cases have spread from parts of Africa to Europe, the US and Australia

Did the virus originate in a laboratory in Wuhan?

Claim: The Wuhan Institute of Virology is said to have experimented with monkeypox viruses. To some that's a clear indication for the origin of the current outbreak. It's reminiscent of the "laboratory theory" of the coronavirus, which is now considered unlikely among scientists, but not entirely ruled out.

DW Fact Check: Misleading.

Experiments on PCR testing of monkeypox viruses have taken place in Wuhan. This is undisputed, and a study published by the institute in February 2022 also makes this transparent. However, this study only experimented with a fragment of the virus that had less than one-third of the monkeypox genome. That fragment was perfectly safe, the study says, because any risk of becoming contagious again was eliminated. 

"There is no evidence to indicate that monkeypox escaped from a lab. This virus exists in nature among animal reservoirs in several countries in central and western Africa with small human outbreaks reported almost every year," Mark Slifka, an immunologist and professor at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, told DW.

Slifka also says that scientists can distinguish between different strains of the virus by sequencing the genome. This allows scientists to establish whether the virus is related to the West African strain or the Central African strain of monkeypox virus. "To my knowledge, none of the primary cases reported travel to China prior to being diagnosed with monkeypox," Slifka said.

The World Health Organization has also confirmed that all current cases to date have been linked to a strain of monkeypox virus that originated in West Africa. According to a paper published by the European Center for Disease Prevention, the fact that an increasing number of cases are currently occurring in Europe is probably due to so-called spreader events where the virus was passed on between men having sex with men, as monkeypox is transmitted primarily via direct mucosal contact.

Is monkeypox a 'plandemic'?

Claim: The claim that the new outbreak of monkeypox was prepared long in advance is also spreading on social media networks. A simulation game at the Munich Security Conference, which was based on a monkeypox scenario, is supposed to be proof. Others establish a direct link between Bill Gates and the outbreak of monkeypox. He is said to have repeatedly warned of such a scenario.

DW Fact Check: Misleading.

The simulation game used as evidence of an allegedly planned monkeypox pandemic at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) 2021 exists and even includes the scenario of a fictitious monkeypox outbreak in May 2022. The simulation was initiated by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) as part of the MSC to draw attention to gaps in global pandemic coordination.

Simulation games are used in many contexts to prepare for complex scenarios/security risks and to rehearse or review procedures. The fact that such a scenario now exists shows how realistic it is, but it does not prove causality.

While the scenario is close enough, it does not correspond with reality. For example, the real pathogen is less infectious, and the transmission routes differ from the scenario at the MSC. The NTI clarified this again in a recent statement: "The fictional scenario in our exercise involved a hypothetical engineered strain of monkeypox virus, which was more transmissible and more dangerous than natural strains of the virus, and which spread globally — eventually causing more than three billion cases and 270 million deaths over a period of 18 months."

NTI said that in the current outbreak there was no reason to believe that it "involves an engineered pathogen, as we have not seen any compelling evidence that would support such a hypothesis. We also do not believe that the current outbreak has the potential to spread as rapidly as the fictional, engineered pathogen in our scenario or to cause such a high case fatality rate."

As far as the claims go regarding Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist has long been involved in disease prevention with his foundation and has been warning for years about the dangers of bioterrorism and pandemics — including, for example, a smallpox outbreak. The possibility of such an outbreak, or a bioterrorist attack with smallpox viruses, is also being discussed in various research articles. Gates never specifically mentioned monkeypox itself in his statements.

Ines Eisele contributed to this story.

This article was originally published in German.

How Serious Is Monkeypox?

This viral illness is not like Covid, but there is cause for concern. Here’s how experts are thinking about it now.

By Knvul Sheikh
June 24, 2022

Health officials have confirmed more than 3,500 cases of monkeypox in 44 countries, including many where the disease does not typically occur, like the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Canada, France and the United States.

As of June 23, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have confirmed 173 cases of monkeypox in 24 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.

On May 22, President Biden addressed the highly unusual cases, stating that “it is a concern in the sense that if it were to spread it would be consequential.” After more than two years of living through a pandemic, it is understandable that the news of a new virus spreading across the globe could cause alarm, but health experts say that monkeypox is unlikely to create a scenario similar to that of the coronavirus, even if more cases are found. “As surveillance expands, we do expect that more cases will be seen. But we need to put this into context because it’s not Covid,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on Covid-19, said in a live online Q. and A. on May 23.

Monkeypox is not a new virus, and it is not spread in the same way as the coronavirus, so we asked experts for a better understanding of the pathogen — and how the disease it causes is different from Covid-19.

How contagious is monkeypox?

People typically catch monkeypox by coming into close contact with infected animals. That can be through an animal bite, scratch, bodily fluids, feces or by consuming meat that isn’t cooked enough, said Ellen Carlin, a researcher at Georgetown University who studies zoonotic diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans.

Although it was first discovered in laboratory monkeys in 1958, which gives the virus its name, scientists think rodents are the main carriers of monkeypox in the wild. It is primarily found in Central and West Africa, particularly in areas close to tropical rainforests — and rope squirrels, tree squirrels, Gambian pouched rats and dormice have all been identified as potential carriers.

“The virus has probably been circulating in these animals for a very, very long time,” Dr. Carlin said. “And for the most part, it has stayed in animal populations.”

The first human case of monkeypox was detected in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since then, the virus has periodically caused small outbreaks, though most have been limited to a few hundred cases in 11 African countries.

A handful of cases have made it to other continents, brought by travelers or the import of exotic animals that passed the virus to house pets and then to their owners.

But human-to-human transmission of monkeypox virus is pretty rare, Dr. Van Kerkhove said. “Transmission is really happening from close physical contact, skin-to-skin contact. So it’s quite different from Covid in that sense.”

The virus can also spread by touching or sharing infected items like clothing and bedding, or by the respiratory droplets produced by sneezing or coughing, according to the W.H.O.

That may sound eerily familiar because in the early days of the pandemic many experts said that the coronavirus also had little human-to-human transmission beyond respiratory droplets and contaminated surfaces. Later research showed that the coronavirus can spread through much smaller particles called aerosols with the ability to travel distances greater than six feet. But that doesn’t mean the same will turn out to be true for the monkeypox virus, said Luis Sigal, an expert in poxviruses at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. The coronavirus is a tiny, single-stranded RNA virus, which may have aided its ability to become airborne. The monkeypox virus, however, is made of double-stranded DNA, which means that the virus itself is much larger and heavier and unable to travel as far, Dr. Sigal said.

Other routes of monkeypox transmission include from mother to fetus via the placenta or during close contact during and after birth.

The majority of cases this year have been in young men, many of whom self-identified as men who have sex with men, though experts are cautious about suggesting that monkeypox transmission may occur through semen or other bodily fluids exchanged during sex. Instead, contact with infected lesions during sex may be a more plausible route. “This is not a gay disease, as some people in social media have attempted to label it,” Dr. Andy Seale, an adviser with the W.H.O.’s H.I.V., Hepatitis and S.T.I.s Program, said during the May 23 Q. and A. “Anybody can contract monkeypox through close contact.”

What are the symptoms and how bad can a monkeypox infection get?

Monkeypox is part of the same family of viruses as smallpox, but it is typically a much more mild condition, according to the C.D.C. On average, symptoms appear within six to 13 days of exposure, but can take up to three weeks. People who get sick commonly experience a fever, headache, back and muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes and general exhaustion.

About one to three days after getting a fever, most people also develop a painful rash that is characteristic of poxviruses. It starts with flat red marks that become raised and filled with pus over the course of the next five to seven days. The rash can start on a patient’s face, hands, feet, the inside of their mouth or on their genitals, and progress to the rest of the body. (While chickenpox causes a similar-looking rash, it is not a true poxvirus, but is caused by the unrelated varicella-zoster virus.)

Once an individual’s pustules scab over, in two to four weeks, they are no longer infectious, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada.

Children and people with underlying immune deficiencies may have more severe cases, but monkeypox is rarely fatal. While one strain found in Central Africa can kill up to 10 percent of infected individuals, estimates suggest that the version of the virus currently circulating has a fatality rate of less than 1 percent.

And the easily identifiable rash of monkeypox, as well as its earlier symptoms, could be considered beneficial. “One of the most challenging things about Covid has been that it can be spread asymptomatically or pre-symptomatically, by people who have no idea that they’re infected,” Dr. Rasmussen said. “But with monkeypox it doesn’t appear that there is any pre-symptomatic transmission.”

Still, as the recent outbreak of cases has shown, there are plenty of opportunities to transmit monkeypox in the first few days of an infection, when symptoms are nonspecific, Dr. Rasmussen said.

What to Know About the Monkeypox Virus

    Card 1 of 5

What is monkeypox? Monkeypox is a virus endemic in parts of Central and West Africa. It is similar to smallpox, but less severe. It was discovered in 1958, after outbreaks occurred in monkeys kept for research, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

               Card 2 of 5

What are the symptoms? Monkeypox creates a rash that starts with flat red marks that become raised and filled with pus. Infected people may also have a fever and body aches. Symptoms typically appear in six to 13 days but can take as long as three weeks after exposure to show, and can last for two to four weeks. Health officials say smallpox vaccines and other treatments can be used to control an outbreak.

                Card 3 of 5

How infectious is it? The virus spreads mainly through body fluids, skin contact and respiratory droplets, though some experts suggest that it could occasionally be airborne. Typically it does not lead to major outbreaks, though it has spread in unusual ways this year, and among populations that have not been vulnerable in the past.

Card 4  of 5

Should I be worried? The likelihood of the virus being spread during sexual contact is high, but the risk of transmission in other ways is low. Most people have mild symptoms and recover within weeks, but the virus can be fatal in a small percentage of cases. Studies also suggest that older adults may have some protection from decades-old smallpox vaccinations.

Card 5 of 5

Is monkeypox similar to Covid? Health experts say that monkeypox is unlikely to create a pandemic scenario similar to that of the coronavirus. While Covid-19 is a tiny RNA virus that can spread through aerosols, monkeypox is a larger DNA virus that is transmitted mostly through close physical contact and has a much smaller mutation rate than RNA viruses.

Do I need to worry about a rising threat?

The good news is that there is no evidence yet to suggest that the monkeypox virus has evolved or become more infectious. DNA viruses like monkeypox are generally very stable and evolve extremely slowly compared to RNA viruses, Dr. Sigal said. Scientists are sequencing the viruses from recent cases to check for potential mutations, and will know soon if the infectiousness, severity or other characteristics have changed, he said. “But my expectation is that they will not be any different.”

Nevertheless, experts have some explanations for the recent increase in monkeypox cases. Research has shown that incidences of humans contracting viruses from contact with animals — also known as zoonotic spillovers — have become more common in recent decades. Increasing urbanization and deforestation means that humans and wild animals are coming into contact more often. Some animals that carry zoonotic viruses, like bats and rodents, have actually become more abundant, while others have expanded or adapted their habitats because of urban development and climate change.


“There’s more opportunities for relatively rare pathogens to get into new communities, find new hosts and travel to new places,” Dr. Rasmussen said.

Despite a brief pandemic lull, people are also traveling more frequently and to more parts of the world than they did just a decade ago. And while many of the new monkeypox cases are puzzling because patients did not have a history of direct travel to endemic countries in Africa, epidemiologists may uncover an indirect travel connection as they race to complete contact tracing in the coming weeks.

“The main risk for people these days with regards to viruses remains Covid,” Dr. Rasmussen said. “The good news there is that a lot of the same measures that will reduce your risk of Covid — social distancing, wearing masks in public spaces, practicing good hand hygiene and surface disinfection — will also reduce your risk of getting monkeypox.”

What is the treatment for monkeypox?

If you get sick, the treatment for monkeypox generally involves symptom management. Two antiviral drugs — cidofovir and tecovirimat — and an intravenous antibody treatment originally developed for smallpox could be used to manage monkeypox as well, though they have only been studied in the lab and animal models.

There is also a vaccine that the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2019, for people 18 and older, that protects against smallpox and monkeypox. But health officials stopped routinely vaccinating Americans against smallpox in 1972, when the disease was eradicated in the United States, and smallpox vaccines and treatments are now stockpiled mainly for national security purposes.

“The sporadic monkeypox outbreaks that have occurred in the past haven’t been enough to warrant restarting the smallpox vaccination program,” Dr. Rasmussen said. Health officials in the United States and other countries have begun using some of the stockpiled vaccines and treatments to prevent the spread of monkeypox from patients to their health care providers and close contacts, according to the C.D.C.

If you have a new rash or are concerned about monkeypox, the C.D.C. urges people to contact their health care provider. The agency has asked doctors to be on the alert for signs of the telltale rash, and says potential monkeypox cases should be isolated and flagged to them. Doctors also should not limit their concerns to men who identify as gay or bisexual, or patients who have recently traveled to Central or West African countries.

“It’s really hard to put a timeline on when this will be contained, or how easy it will be,” Dr. Rasmussen said. “But we have the pharmacological tools, in combination with the classic isolation and quarantine procedures that have helped contain monkeypox outbreaks in the past. We can contain it again. The key is going to be identifying all the cases.”

Audio produced by Adrienne Hurst.

Dani Blum contributed reporting.

What to Know About Monkeypox

‘Everybody Should Be Concerned’ About Monkeypox, Biden Warns
May 22, 2022


A version of this article appears in print on May 26, 2022, Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: A Primer on Monkeypox, and How This Virus Differs From Covid-19. 

Survey shows gay men cutting back on sex to avoid monkeypox

By Ernie Mundell HealthDay Reporter

A booth offers information on monkeypox at a fetish and leather festival in

 San Francisco on July 31. Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

A survey conducted among American gay and bisexual men in early August found about half saying they'd cut down on sexual activity -- including one-night stands and app-based hookups -- in response to the global monkeypox outbreak.

The survey, conducted online Aug. 5-15, was led by Kevin Delaney, of the Monkeypox Emergency Response Team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"These findings suggest that men who have sex with men are already taking actions to protect their sexual health and making decisions to reduce risk to themselves and their partners," Delaney's team reported.

The timing of the survey -- and its finding that America's gay male community reacted swiftly to the monkeypox threat -- coincides with a recent global decline in monkeypox cases.

RELATEDFDA warns of risk of monkeypox infection from fecal transplant treatments

According to World Health Organization data released Thursday, the number of monkeypox cases around the world dropped by 21% over the prior week.

According to the CDC, nearly 17,000 cases of the viral illness have been reported in the United States. The vast majority of cases are occurring among gay and bisexual men.

Monkeypox typically requires skin-to-skin or skin-to-mouth contact with an infected patient's lesions to spread. People can also become infected through contact with the clothing or bedsheets of someone who has monkeypox lesions.

RELATEDWyoming confirms 1st monkeypox case; outbreak reaches all 50 states

A vaccine for monkeypox called Jynneos exists, but it is in short supply. Vaccines are being rationed and reserved for those most at risk, including gay and bisexual men with multiple sex partners, and for health workers, laboratory staff and outbreak responders.

In the meantime, gay and bisexual men appear to be modifying their behavior to lessen the risk for infection and spread, the new study finds.

The new survey involved 824 U.S. adult men, 90% of whom reported sexual activity with another man at least once over the past three months (in other words, during the monkeypox outbreak).

RELATEDBritain launches pilot monkeypox vaccine plan to stretch available doses

Just over 70% of respondents were White, and about half were under the age of 45. They came from all over the United States, with about half living in cities.

"Respondents reported changing sexual behaviors since they learned about the monkeypox outbreak," the CDC team reported.

Overall, "47.8% reported reducing their number of sex partners, 49.8% reported reducing one-time sexual encounters, and 49.6% reported reducing sex with partners met on dating apps or at sex venues," the researchers said.

Monkeypox can be transmitted whenever skin touches skin, and about 42% of men surveyed said they'd reduced their attendance at "social events with close contact," the study also found.

Of course, getting the vaccine is another way of protecting yourself from monkeypox.

According to the survey, by Aug. 15 nearly 19% of the men surveyed said they'd gotten at least their first dose of the two-dose vaccine.

"Receipt of vaccine was highest among Hispanic men [27.1%] and lowest among Black men [11.5%]," the survey found. Just under 18% of White men had received at least one dose of vaccine. More urban men got the shots compared to those living in rural areas, and vaccine uptake was highest in the Northeast (27.8%) and lowest in the South (13%).

Folks who had two or more partners were more likely to avail themselves of the Jynneos shot (about 30%) compared to people with one or no partners (about 14%).

Still, access to the vaccine remained a problem: According to the study, of the 662 people who said they had yet to get a vaccine, 28.5% said they'd tried to get one but had been unsuccessful.

By Aug. 15, actual cases of monkeypox were rare: Just 1.7% of the men responding said they'd become infected. And overall, America's gay community appeared to be taking the outbreak in stride: "82.3% reported feeling confident that they could protect themselves from monkeypox," Delaney's group said.

In tandem with the survey findings, another CDC study sought to predict the impact of changes in sexual behavior on the spread of monkeypox in the United States.

As context, the authors of the modeling study noted that "one-time partnerships, which account for 3% of daily sexual partnerships [among gay/bisexual men] and 16% of daily sex acts, account for approximately 50% of daily monkeypox virus transmission."

Within that framework, "a 40% reduction in one-time partnerships might delay the spread of monkeypox and reduce the percentage of persons infected by 20% to 31%," the researchers concluded. They were led by Thomas Gift, also from the CDC's Monkeypox Emergency Response Team.

Both studies were published Friday in the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

More information:

Find out more about monkeypox at the World Health Organization.

SOURCE: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Aug. 26, 2022

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

As monkeypox drops in the West, still no vaccines for Africa

By MARIA CHENG and CHINEDU ASADU

yesterday

1 of 5

A man holds a sign urging increased access to the monkeypox vaccine during a protest in San Francisco on July 18, 2022. With monkeypox cases subsiding in Europe and parts of North America, many scientists say now is the time to prioritize stopping the virus in Africa. 

(AP Photo/Haven Daley, File)


ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — With monkeypox cases subsiding in Europe and parts of North America, many scientists say now is the time to prioritize stopping the virus in Africa.

In July, the U.N. health agency designated monkeypox as a global emergency and appealed to the world to support African countries so that the catastrophic vaccine inequity that plagued the outbreak of COVID-19 wouldn’t be repeated.

But the global spike of attention has had little impact on the continent. No rich countries have shared vaccines or treatments with Africa, and some experts fear interest may soon evaporate.

“Nothing has changed for us here, the focus is all on monkeypox in the West,” said Placide Mbala, a virologist who directs the global health research department at Congo’s Institute of Biomedical Research.

“The countries in Africa where monkeypox is endemic are still in the same situation we have always been, with weak resources for surveillance, diagnostics and even the care of patients,” he said.

Monkeypox has sickened people in parts of West and Central Africa since the 1970s, but it wasn’t until the disease triggered unusual outbreaks in Europe and North America that public health officials even thought to use vaccines. As rich countries rushed to buy nearly all the world’s supply of the most advanced shot against monkeypox, the World Health Organization said in June that it would create a vaccine-sharing mechanism to help needy countries get doses.

So far, that hasn’t happened.

“Africa is still not benefiting from either monkeypox vaccines or the antiviral treatments,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s Africa director, adding that only small amounts have been available for research purposes. Since 2000, Africa has reported about 1,000 to 2,000 suspected monkeypox cases every year. So far this year, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have identified about 3,000 suspected infections, including more than 100 deaths.

In recent weeks, monkeypox cases globally have fallen by more than a quarter, including by 55% in Europe, according to WHO.

Dr. Ifedayo Adetifa, head of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control, said the lack of help for Africa was reminiscent of the inequity seen during COVID-19.

“Everybody looked after their (own) problem and left everybody else,” he said. Adetifa lamented that monkeypox outbreaks in Africa never got the international attention that might have prevented the virus from spreading globally.

Rich countries have stretched their vaccine supplies by using a fifth of the regular dose, but none have expressed interest in helping Africa. WHO’s regional office for the Americas recently announced it had struck a deal to obtain 100,000 monkeypox doses that will start being delivered to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean within weeks. But no similar agreements have been reached for Africa.

“I would very much like to have vaccines to offer to my patients or anything that could just reduce their stay in the hospital,” said Dr. Dimie Ogoina, a professor of medicine at Nigeria’s Delta University and a member of WHO’s monkeypox emergency committee.

Since WHO declared monkeypox a global emergency, Nigeria has seen the disease continue to spread, with few significant interventions.

“We still do not have the funds to do all the studies that we need,” Ogoina said.

Research into the animals that carry monkeypox and spread it to humans in Africa is piecemeal and lacks coordination, said Mbala, of Congo’s Institute of Biomedical Research.

Last week, the White House said it was optimistic about a recent drop in monkeypox cases in the U.S., saying authorities had administered more than 460,000 doses of the vaccine made by Bavarian Nordic.

The U.S. has about 35% of the world’s more than 56,000 monkeypox cases, but nearly 80% of the world’s supply of the vaccine, according to a recent analysis by the advocacy group Public Citizen.

The U.S. hasn’t announced any monkeypox vaccine donations for Africa, but the White House did make a recent request to Congress for $600 million in global aid.

Even if rich countries start sharing monkeypox tools with Africa soon, they shouldn’t be applauded, other experts said.

“It should not be the case that countries only decide to share leftover vaccines when the epidemic is declining in their countries,” said Piero Olliaro, a professor of infectious diseases of poverty at Oxford University. “It is exactly the same scenario as COVID and it is still completely unethical.”

Olliaro, who recently returned to the U.K. from a trip to Central African Republic to work on monkeypox, said WHO’s emergency declaration appeared to offer “no tangible benefits in Africa.”

In Nigeria’s Lagos state, which includes the country’s largest city and is hard hit by monkeypox, some people are calling for the government to urgently do more.

“You can’t tell me that the situation wouldn’t have improved without a vaccine,” said Temitayo Lawal, 29, an economist.

“If there is no need for vaccines, why are we now seeing the U.S. and all these countries using them?” he asked. “Our government needs to acquire doses as well.”

Expert: Monkeypox likely spread by sex at 2 raves in Europe

MARIA CHENG

May 23, 2022

LONDON (AP) — A leading adviser to the World Health Organization described the unprecedented outbreak of the rare disease monkeypox in developed countries as “a random event” that might be explained by risky sexual behavior at two recent mass events in Europe.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. David Heymann, who formerly headed WHO’s emergencies department, said the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission among gay and bisexual men at two raves held in Spain and Belgium. Monkeypox has not previously triggered widespread outbreaks beyond Africa, where it is endemic in animals.

“We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission,” said Heymann.

That marks a significant departure from the disease’s typical pattern of spread in central and western Africa, where people are mainly infected by animals like wild rodents and primates and outbreaks have not spilled across borders.

A German government report to lawmakers, obtained by the AP, said it expected to see further cases and that the risk of catching monkeypox "mainly appears to lie with sexual contacts among men.”

The four confirmed cases in Germany have been linked to exposure at “party events including on Gran Canaria and in Berlin, where sexual activity took place,” it said.

To date, WHO has recorded more than 90 cases of monkeypox in a dozen countries including Britain, Spain, Israel, France, Switzerland, the U.S. and Australia. On Monday, Denmark announced its first case, Portugal revised its total upwards to 37 and Italy reported one further infection.

Madrid’s senior health official said on Monday that the Spanish capital has recorded 30 confirmed cases so far. Enrique Ruiz Escudero said authorities are investigating possible links between a recent Gay Pride event in the Canary Islands, which drew some 80,000 people, and cases at a Madrid sauna.

Heymann chaired an urgent meeting of WHO’s advisory group on infectious disease threats on Friday to assess the ongoing epidemic and said there was no evidence to suggest that monkeypox might have mutated into a more infectious form.

Monkeypox typically causes fever, chills, rash, and lesions on the face or genitals. It can be spread through close contact with an infected person or their clothing or bedsheets, but sexual transmission has not yet been documented. Most people recover from the disease within several weeks without requiring hospitalization. Vaccines against smallpox, a related disease, are also effective in preventing monkeypox and some antiviral drugs are being developed.

In recent years, the disease has been fatal in up to 6% of infections, but no deaths have been reported among the current cases. WHO said confirmed cases have so far been the less severe West African group of monkeypox viruses and appeared to be linked to a virus that was first detected in exported cases from Nigeria to Britain, Israel and Singapore in 2018-2019.

Monkeypox Outbreak Linked to Gay Sauna and Festival

While not considered a sexually transmitted disease, monkeypox is spread through close contact.

BY ALEX COOPER
MAY 23 2022 

Spanish health authorities believe that a string of new monkeypox cases is linked to a gay sauna near Madrid and a Pride event in the Canary Islands that drew tens of thousands of people.

Spain announced 23 new cases Friday. Madrid regional health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero told journalists that health officials have been tracing the cases from an outbreak at the now-closed sauna, Reuters reports.

"The Public Health Department will carry out an even more detailed analysis... to control contagion, cut the chains of transmission and try to mitigate the transmission of this virus as much as possible," Escudero said.

He told the Associated Press that another link may be a Pride event in the Canary Islands that saw around 80,000 people in attendance, the news wire reported Monday.

Elsewhere in Europe, an outbreak of monkeypox in Belgium has been connected to visitors at the Darklands fetish festival in early May, PinkNews reports.

At least three cases have been linked to the festival, according to the organizers.

“There’s reason to assume that the virus has been brought in by visitors from abroad to the festival after recent cases in other countries,” they said in a statement.

While many of the recent cases of monkeypox are among men who have sex with men, Dr. Agam Rao, a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, told NBC News that monkeypox isn’t considered a sexually transmitted disease.

“It’s probably premature and potentially even harmful to assume that there are only cases within that community,” she said. “There's going to need to be studies related to trying to isolate virus from seminal fluid or vaginal fluid. There’s really quite a lot of work that would need to be done before we would say that it can be transmitted sexually.”

However, the former head of the World Health Organization told the AP, “We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission.”

The illness is endemic in animals in central and western Africa, according to the news wire.

Last Wednesday, Massachusetts confirmed the first confirmed case of monkeypox in the U.S. this year.

“The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) today confirmed a single case of monkeypox virus infection in an adult male with recent travel to Canada,” the department said in a statement.

In a statement last week, Dr. Hans Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe, said that the new cases that have emerged in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere, have been “atypical.”

“Firstly, because in this instance all but one of the recent cases have no relevant travel history to areas where monkeypox is endemic, in West Africa or Central Africa. Secondly, because most of the initial cases found are being detected through sexual health services and are among men who have sex with men. And thirdly, because of the geographically dispersed nature of the cases across Europe and beyond, this suggests that transmission may have been ongoing for some time,” he said.

Kluge added that the WHO is troubled over the summer season’s festivals and parties.

“I am concerned that transmission could accelerate, as the cases currently being detected are among those engaging in sexual activity, and the symptoms are unfamiliar to many,” Kluge said.

Monkeypox is a zoonotic orthopoxvirus that appears similar to smallpox, although significantly less deadly. Most outbreaks in Europe and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere are related to the exotic pet trade and international travel.

Initial symptoms of the monkeypox virus include fever, headache, myalgia, fatigue, and swelling of the lymph nodes. After one to two days, lesions may develop in the mouth and later the face and extremities like the palms and soles. The rash may further spread, and the number of lesions can range from just a few to thousands.

Monkeypox is spreading through sexual contact, but it’s not a sexually transmitted infection, WHO says. Here’s what that means

Andrew Marquardt
Mon, May 23, 2022

Melina Mara/The Washington Post — Getty Images

Monkeypox, a potentially lethal disease responsible for an alarming rise in cases in North America and Europe over the past three weeks, is primarily spreading through sex between men, according to the World Health Organization.

The disease is spread through close contact with infected people, animals, or materials that are contaminated with the virus. It enters the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract or through the eyes, nose or mouth, according to the CDC.

The virus is not considered a sexually transmitted infection, or spread through semen and vaginal fluids, WHO officials noted. Anyone in close contact with a person who has the virus is considered at high risk of infection, however.

“Many diseases can be spread through sexual contact. You could get a cough or a cold through sexual contact, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a sexually transmitted disease,” Andy Seale, an adviser to the WHO about HIV, hepatitis and other sexually transmitted infections, told CNBC.


In response to the rising number of monkeypox cases worldwide, Bavarian Nordic, a Danish vaccine manufacturer, is ramping up production of its smallpox vaccine to help governments fight the growing outbreak, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

As of May 21, 92 confirmed cases and 28 suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported to the WHO from 12 countries, including the U.S., Australia, Germany, and Spain.

In the U.S., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials told Fortune last week that health officials are monitoring six people for suspected cases of monkeypox, all of whom sat next to a person on a May 3-4 flight from Nigeria to London who eventually developed the virus.

Monkeypox is a rare disease related to smallpox and cowpox that causes fever, muscle aches, and lesions. The incubation period, or time between exposure and the onset of symptoms, is usually a week or two but can range from five to 21 days, according to the CDC.

In Africa, where the disease is typically found, monkeypox has proven deadly in as many as 10% of infected persons, the CDC notes. The illness typically lasts anywhere between two and four weeks.

While there is no vaccine that specifically targets monkeypox, smallpox vaccines including the one offered by Bavarian Nordic, can protect against monkeypox infections by at least 85%, according to the CDC.

Known as Jynneos in the U.S., the Bavarian Nordic smallpox vaccine is one of two vaccines currently licensed in the U.S. to prevent smallpox, according to the CDC. It is the only vaccine that the U.S. specifically licenses to prevent monkeypox, however.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Bavarian Nordic CEO Paul Chaplin said the company has received calls from “dozens of countries” in recent weeks asking about Jynneos, which is known as Imvanex in Europe and Imvamune in Canada.

Supply of the vaccine is currently limited, but the company will be increasing its manufacturing in the weeks and months ahead, Chaplin told the Wall Street Journal.

“We feel confident based on discussions that we’ll be able to meet the demand in a relatively short period of time,” Chaplin said.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, President Biden said the public should be concerned about the rising number of cases in the U.S. and abroad.

“They haven’t told me the level of exposure yet, but it is something that everybody should be concerned about,” Biden told reporters. “It is a concern in that if it were to spread, it would be consequential.”

On Monday, Biden backtracked those comments, saying the country has “vaccines to take care of it.”

"I just don't think it rises to the level of the kind of concern that existed with COVID-19,” Biden said.

According to Chaplin, the U.S. and Canada are the only two countries that have meaningful stockpiles of the Bavarian Nordic vaccines. The CDC says the U.S. has access to enough doses of smallpox vaccine to vaccinate every person in the United States if an outbreak were to occur.