Monkeypox isn't like COVID-19 — and that's a good thing

The Director of the Spallanzani infectious disease hospital spoke to reporters at the end of the news conference.

Andrew Medichini/AP

The recent headlines about a sudden emergence of an unusual disease, spreading case by case across countries and continents may evoke memories of early 2020.

In a good way, monkeypox is no cobra.

A new outbreak of monkeypox has appeared in Europe and the U.S. in recent weeks, even in people who have not traveled to Africa.

It is important for public health officials to be on the lookout for monkeypox, but experts say it is unlikely that the virus will cause a worldwide epidemic like COVID-19 did.

At a public Q&A session on Monday, Dr.Rosamund Lewis, head of Smallpox secretariat at the World Health Organization, said that monkeypox and Covid are not the same disease.

Monkeypox is less easy to spread than COVID-19. Scientists have been studying monkeypox for more than 50 years. It can be fought in many of the same ways as smallpox.

Scientists are familiar with how monkeypox spreads, how it presents, and how to treat and contain it, giving health authorities a much bigger head start on containing it.

There are other ways the public health approach to monkeypox is different.

Scientists already know how it spreads, and it's different than COVID

Most often skin-to-skin contact, or long physical contact with clothes or bedding, is what Monkeypox requires in order to spread.

COVID-19 spreads quickly and easily. In rare cases, coronaviruses can be spread by sharing a room with someone who has previously been in that room.

Transmission is happening from close physical contact to skin-to-skin contact. Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove is an infectious disease epidemiologist with the WHO.

The classic symptom of monkeypox is a rash that begins on the face and then spreads to other parts of the body.

The time it takes for the disease to develop after exposure is anywhere from five days to 21 days.

The current outbreak has seen different patterns, including that the rash begins in the genital area and doesn't spread across the body.

Experts say that it is usually through physical contact that the virus spreads.

If you pass someone in the grocery store, they are going to be at risk for monkeypox, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The people most likely to be at risk are household members or health care workers who may have treated the person.

We have seen over the years that the best way to deal with cases is to keep those who are sick isolated so that they can't spread the disease to family and friends, and to follow up with those who have the disease.

The death rate with this version of virus is less than 1%.

Monkeypox is less contagious than COVID-19

The fact that COVID-19 is very contagious was one factor that helped it spread quickly. That is even more true of the variant that has emerged in the past year.

The average number of people you would expect to pass a disease along to is R0, according to Epidemiologists.

The R0 needs to be higher than 1 for a disease outbreak to grow. The original version of COVID-19 had a number between 2 and 3. A recent study found that the number is about 8 for the omicron variant.

According to Jo Walker, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, the recent spread of monkeypox is not as bad as it seems.

Most estimates from earlier outbreaks have had an R0 of less than one. They said that with that, you can have clusters of cases, even an outbreak, but they will eventually die out on their own.

The WHO and other public health authorities are confident that the situation will not get out of hand.

Because monkeypox is closely related to smallpox, there are already vaccines

The family of viruses that include Monkeypox and smallpox are called the Orthopox family. Smallpox was eradicated in 1980 after a successful worldwide campaign of vaccines.

The WHO says that the vaccine is 85% effective against monkeypox.

The WHO's Lewis said that the viruses are closely related and that they have the benefit of years of research and treatments.

The U.S. is one of the countries that has held vaccines in reserve in case of a resurgence of the disease. They can be used to contain a monkeypox outbreak.

The FDA has two vaccines approved for use.

The Jynneos vaccine is approved for use against monkeypox. The company will provide more in the coming months, the CDC says, and about a thousand doses are available in the Strategic National Stockpile.

In an interview with NPR, Dr. Raj Panjabi of the White House pandemic office said that they have already worked to secure sufficient supply of effective treatments and vaccines to prevent those exposed from contracting monkeypox and treating people who have been affected.