The mpox outbreak is a very different situation from the COVID pandemic, experts say but we cannot be "complacent". While the outbreak of in multiple African countries is concerning, the situation differs from what the world went through just four years ago with COVID-19, experts tell Euronews Health. There is, however, an urgency to respond to mpox, particularly as cases of a likely more transmissible new offshoot continue to spread, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and are likely to be .
One case of that new variant, clade 1b, has been confirmed in Sweden, and another case has been confirmed in Thailand this week, both in individuals who had travelled to countries struggling with outbreaks. Meanwhile, European health authorities raised the risk level for the region last week, days after the World Health Organization (WHO) named mpox a global health emergency. Euronews Health spoke to experts about whether Europeans should be concerned and some of their key messages on the possibility of eliminating the virus.
Mpox is an infectious illness caused by the monkeypox virus that most often causes a skin rash or lesions among other symptoms, such as fever or muscle aches. The virus was previously declared a global health emergency in 2022, but experts say it is very different from the world’s last health crisis, COVID-19. "People shouldn’t be about having a COVID-like situation suddenly happen again because of mpox," Dr Marc-Alain Widdowson, WHO Europe.