Monkeypox outbreak top developments: WHO adviser says two recent raves might be behind outbreak

A leading adviser to the World Health Organization has described the unprecedented outbreak of the rare disease monkeypox in developed countries as “a random event” that might be explained risky sexual behavior at two recent mass events in Europe, AP reported.
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,” Heymann said to AP.
Here are some top developments on monkeypox:
➡️ Health authorities said they may have found a third case of the monkeypox virus in the United States and are running tests on a patient in South Florida to confirm if the person has contracted the disease, which is staging a rare outbreak outside of Africa. The case in Broward County, Florida, is “related to international travel,” the US Centers for Disease Control and the Florida Department of Health said in a statement on Sunday, “and the person remains isolated.”
The first monkeypox case in the United States was reported in Massachusetts on Wednesday. The second US case was a New York City resident who tested positive for the virus on Friday, health officials said.
➡️ In Europe, more than 100 cases of the viral infection, which spreads through close person-to-person contact, have been reported recently.
➡️ Argentina’s health minry said it had detected a suspected case of monkeypox in Buenos Aires, amid growing global alarm over rising cases in Europe and elsewhere of the viral infection more common to west and central Africa. A minry said the suspected case was a resident of Buenos Aires who had recently traveled to Spain.
➡️ Anyone at the highest risk of having caught monkeypox should isolate for 21 days, the UK Health Security Agency (UKSHA) stated in an advisory. According to the BBC, the advice applies to anyone who has had direct or household contact with a confirmed case. Contacts are advised to provide their details for contact tracing, forgo travel, and avoid contact with immunosuppressed people, pregnant women and children under 12, the UKSHA said.
➡️ Bangladesh has declared a health alert to control the ongoing outbreak of the Monkeypox across the world. “No monkeypox case has been reported in Bangladesh yet, but we have made the declaration to check any eventuality,” an official from the country’s health minry said as quoted ANI. According to the official, the initial steps will involve monkeypox screening of all incoming passengers from countries where cases have been detected.
➡️ The United Nations Aids agency has called some reporting on the monkeypox virus “rac and homophobic”, highlighting that a “significant proportion” of recent cases have been identified among the LGBTQI community. But transmission was most likely via close physical contact with a monkeypox sufferer and could affect anyone, UNAIDS said in a statement, saying some portrayals of Africans and LGBTI people “reinforce homophobic and rac stereotypes and exacerbate stigma”.
“Stigma and blame undermine trust and capacity to respond effectively during outbreaks like this one,” said the UNAIDS deputy executive director Matthew Kavanagh. “Experience shows that stigmatising rhetoric can quickly disable evidence-based response stoking cycles of fear, driving people away from health services, impeding efforts to identify cases and encouraging ineffective, punitive measures,” he said.
(With inputs from agencies)