Monkeypox ‘levelling off’ across Britain, says UKHSA – The Telegraph
Britain’s monkeypox outbreak may have peaked, health officials have said.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) announced on Friday a further 71 cases in the UK, taking the total scale of the outbreak to 2,208, while more than 15,500 infections have been reported globally. The World Health Organization is deliberating whether to declare an international crisis.
In the UK, around two thirds of cases are in London. The vast majority of infections are among gay and bisexual men, as the virus is predominantly spreading through sexual contact in this community.
“Based on the most recent case data, daily case growth has likely slowed,” the UKHSA said in its latest technical briefing. “The number of daily confirmed cases may still be increasing slightly or may be levelling off.”
Britain’s health chiefs added that while London is still the epicentre of the nation’s outbreak, there is now evidence that the virus is spreading more widely in other regions. This week, the NHS is stepping up its vaccination programme against in the capital as more supplies of a jab come on stream.
Dr Meera Chand, Director of Clinical and Emerging Infections at UKHSA, said: “Before you go to a party or event, check yourself for monkeypox symptoms, including rashes and blisters.
“If you have monkeypox symptoms, take a break from attending events or sex until you’ve called 111 or a sexual health service and been assessed by a clinician.”
‘Uncontrolled outbreak’ globally
But experts believe the global outbreak is yet to decelerate.
On Saturday, the WHO is expected to announced whether the epidemic constitutes an public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) – the agency’s highest alert level. At the end of June, experts decided not to call the outbreak a global emergency.
Dr Mikel Martínez, a microbiologist specialising in viral, bacterial and emerging infections at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, told the Telegraph that there is now an “uncontrolled outbreak” globally.
“That’s clear – if you see the numbers, they’re just growing and growing,” he said. “If you look at the epidemic curve and how it is increasing, for me we are going to have monkeypox for a long time. We have not reached the peak of the epidemic.”
Prof Lawrence Gostin, an expert in global health law at Georgetown University, added: “If monkeypox is not a global health emergency, then I don’t know what is. It is an infectious disease that has spread to 42 member states across five WHO regions.
“Health systems are stretched, [men who have sex with men] and other communities placed at high risk, and it requires global coordination,” he said on Twitter. “Monkeypox is spinning out of control. There’s no legal, scientific, or health reason to wait to declare a PHEIC.”
More than 15,500 cases have now been reported worldwide – including 2,724 in the last week. Spain has reported the most infections, followed by the US, Germany and the UK. On Friday, health officials in the US said two children have been diagnosed with monkeypox.
Meanwhile a study from Queen Mary University of London, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the current outbreak is changing what academics know about the virus.
Data from more than 500 British patients revealed 98 per cent of cases are gay men, with 95 per cent of cases thought to be transmitted during sex.
Textbook definitions of the virus say large and numerous lesions are a tell-tale sign of monkeypox infection, but one in ten of the new cases have just one sole blister on the genitals.
NHS England this week ramped up its vaccination efforts to help stymie the monkeypox outbreak in London, increasing the number of clinics, staff and appointments for high-risk gay men to get the Imvanex jab which protects a person from the disease.
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