Health officials in the UK say they can’t tell if the spread of monkeypox has reached its peak in the country, as they reported 45 more cases, bringing the total outbreak of the disease beyond the total. ‘Africa in 366 cases.
The UK Health Safety Agency said 99 per cent of all cases were in men and that almost all 152 men who provided detailed information were identified as gay, bisexual or men who had sex with men. .
About 80% of cases occurred in London and the average age of infected people was 38, the agency said.
“We still can’t determine if the transmission has stopped increasing,” the agency said in a report, citing delays in reporting between the time patients experienced symptoms and confirmed that they had monkeypox.
Anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, is susceptible to the monkeypox virus if they come into close physical contact with an infected person or their sheets or clothing.
“The findings show that the monkey’s smallpox is spread across geographically diffuse sexual networks,” the scientists wrote, adding that some of these connections extend beyond the UK.
“Most cases reported having sex with new or casual partners, sometimes in the context of cruise areas or chemical sex,” the experts said, referring to sex combined with drug use.
The expert noted that the contact details of sexual partners were often not available.
Last month, a senior adviser to the World Health Organization said the outbreak in Europe and beyond was likely to have spread by sex in two recent radishes in Spain and Belgium.
Earlier this week, the WHO said more than 1,000 cases of smallpox had been reported in 29 countries that had not had outbreaks of smallpox-related disease, including the United States, Portugal, Australia and Spain. Italy and Canada.
Poland reported its first case on Friday.
No deaths were reported.
The Health Security Agency found that many of the cases in the UK involved men who reported having sex in saunas, dark rooms or sex clubs.
“Therefore, collaborating with sex sites on the premises to implement targeted interventions would support outbreak control,” the agency said.
He added that using messages targeted to dating applications could also be useful or “support innovative approaches to contact tracking.”
The head of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said it was likely that smallpox had been transmitted undetected for some time beyond Africa and that the United Nations health agency he was concerned that the disease would start infecting more vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women and children.
Dr. Rosamund Lewis, WHO’s leading expert on smallpox in the world, said earlier this week that there was still a “window of opportunity” to prevent the smallpox from reaching the general population and people most at risk for serious illness.
Most patients with monkeypox only experience fever, body aches, chills, and fatigue.
People with more serious illnesses can develop rashes and lesions on their face and hands that can spread to other parts of the body.
In severe cases involving people without access to health care, the WHO has observed a mortality rate of 3 to 6 percent.
The ongoing smallpox outbreak in the UK and elsewhere is the first time the disease has been known to spread among people who have no previous travel links to Africa.
Scientists in the UK said they found three mutations in the monkeypox virus that spread to the country that they rated as “high priority” as they were found to make the disease worse in rats.
They said more research was needed to see if the changes were significant.