The World Health Organization (WHO) does not believe the monkeypox outbreak outside of Africa requires mass vaccinations, a senior official told Reuters on Monday.
Richard Pebody, who leads the high-threat pathogen team at WHO Europe, also told the news agency in an interview that immediate supplies of vaccines and antivirals are relatively limited.
His comments came as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was in the process of releasing some Jynneos vaccine doses for use in monkeypox cases.
Germany’s government said on Monday that it was assessing options for vaccinations, while Britain has offered them to some healthcare workers.
The primary measures to control the outbreak are contact tracing and isolation, Pebody said, noting that it is not a virus that spreads very easily, nor has it so far caused serious disease. The vaccines used to combat monkeypox can have some significant side-effects, he added.
Most of the confirmed cases have not been linked to travel to Africa, which suggests there may be large amounts of undetected cases, said Pebody. Some health authorities suspect there is some degree of community spread.
“So we’re only seeing ... the tip of the iceberg,” he told Reuters.
Given the pace of the outbreak, and lack of clarity around what is driving it, there has been worry that large events and parties this summer could make things much worse.
“I’m not saying to people don’t have a good time, don’t go to attend these events,” Pebody said, adding, “It’s rather around what people do at the parties that matters. So it’s about safe sexual behavior, good hygiene, regular hand washing - all these sorts of things will help to limit the transmission of this virus.”
Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash on Sunday sought to calm the public's fears with regard to a number of recent cases of monkeypox that have been detected both in Israel and abroad.
"It's very important for me to calm people down; this is not Coronavirus-2," Prof. Ash told Radio 103FM. "There were outbreaks of this in the past, before coronavirus. Smallpox, a disease that has been eradicated, is related to monkeypox, which is why the vaccine against smallpox also protects against monkeypox, but this is not a serious illness that the entire population needs to be vaccinated against."
Prof. Ash, a former COVID czar, added that, "We are weighing the option of vaccinating those who are at risk. The vaccine does have side effects and we need to consider this very carefully. The vaccine can cause a similar disease to the one it protects against and can cause lesions. This is a disease that is endemic in Africa and it has two forms. The milder form is the one that has reached us. The man in question has been hospitalized in Ichilov Hospital after discovering lesions on his skin, after returning from western Europe and he has been confirmed to have contracted monkeypox. This disease manifests with fever, lesions and rash, and enlarged lymph nodes, and it generally passes within a couple of weeks. However, if a person with an impaired immune system is infected, the disease can be more serious and can even result in death, though this is rare.