The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is warning travelers to “practice enhanced precautions” as monkeypox spreads. Monkeypox, a disease that results from infection with the monkeypox virus, a viral illness in the same family as smallpox, has been identified in 16 countries across the globe, including the United States.
The CDC, which issued the Level 2 travel health notice last week, said on its website that cases had been reported in Europe, North America and Australia. According to the World Health Organization, “monkeypox virus is transmitted from one person to another by close contact with lesions, body fluids, respiratory droplets and contaminated materials such as bedding.”
For decades, monkeypox has been seen in parts of Central and West Africa and believed to jump occasionally from animals, likely rodents, to people. Typically, several travelers a year arrive in the U.S. and Europe infected with the virus, but such a large chain of person-to-person transmission has never been seen before.
“None of these people reported having recently been in central or west African countries where monkeypox usually occurs, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, among others,” the CDC said in its travel health notice.
However, the agency also said that the “risk to the general public is low.”
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