2022 monkeypox outbreak

2022 outbreak of viral disease

The 2022 monkeypox outbreak is an ongoing outbreak of monkeypox. It was confirmed on 6 May 2022 in the United Kingdom, beginning with a British homosexual who had travelled to Nigeria, where the disease is endemic, who while there presented symptoms consistent with monkeypox on 29 April 2022.

Quotes

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  • The probability of containment is diminishing daily. It's really unfortunate because we do have the tools. This is not an unknown virus. … We have vaccines that are already available, even vaccines with indications for monkeypox. Therapeutics. And we know what's needed to be done.
  • Right now we just don't have nearly enough vaccine to even begin to have a measurable impact on widespread global transmission. There's going to be a lot of frustrated people who want to get vaccine where it won't be available.
  • Declaring a PHEIC makes governments and the global public sit up and take notice. It raises the political stakes for government leaders, and it raises the level of accountability for them to act.
  • Public health officials reject comparisons to the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when they mandated masks and shut down public spaces. They noted that the novel coronavirus was unfamiliar, far deadlier and airborne, with hospitals overrun with patients at various points over the past two years. Monkeypox has known treatments and vaccines, although they have been challenging to access; it also has not killed anyone in the United States, and hospitalizations are uncommon.
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