Monkeypox can be stopped outside endemic countries: WHO

The monkeypox outbreaks in non-endemic countries can be contained and human-to-human transmission of the virus stopped, the World Health Organization said Monday.

Fewer than 200 confirmed and suspected cases had been recorded so far, the WHO's emerging disease lead Maria Van Kerkhove said.

"This is a containable situation, particularly in the countries where we are seeing these outbreaks that are happening across Europe, in North America as well," Van Kerkhove told a live interaction on the UN health agency's social media channels.

"We want to stop human-to-human transmission. We can do this in non-endemic countries.

"We're in a situation where we can use public health tools of early identification, supported isolation of cases. "We can stop human-to-human transmission." Van Kerkhove said the transmission was happening via "close physical contact: skin-to-s...

Lewis said it was not yet known whether the virus had mutated but viruses in the wider orthopoxvirus group "tend not to mutate and they tend to be fairly stable. "We don't yet have evidence yet that there is a mutation in the virus itself," she sa...