Monkeypox cases have risen to 200 globally, as more cases have been reported and spread across 20 countries, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. The health body described the so-called epidemic as containable and proposed creating a stockpile to equitably share the limited vaccines and drugs available worldwide. During a public briefing on Friday, the UN health agency said there is still a lot to know about the Monkeypox outbreak to understand how the current epidemic arose but there is no evidence that any genetic changes in the virus are responsible for the unprecedented epidemic, PTI reported.
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 behaviour, said Dr Sylvie Briand, WHO’s director of pandemic and epidemic diseases.