Unlike in Europe and the United States, no confirmed or suspected cases of monkeypox have recently been reported in Africa.
South African disease experts believe that a mass vaccination campaign against monkeypox is unnecessary and that cases will not spread as quickly as COVID-19.
Despite the fact that the virus is endemic in parts of West and Central Africa, there have been no confirmed or suspected cases of monkeypox on the African continent in recent years.
However, its health authorities are on high alert following the detection of more than 200 suspected and confirmed cases of the virus in at least 19 countries since early May, including Spain, Israel, and the United States.
“At this time, mass vaccinations against monkeypox are not required.” “There’s a lot for us to look into from an epidemiological standpoint,” Adrian Puren, executive director of South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), said on Wednesday.
According to Jacqueline Weyer of the NICD’s Centre for Emerging, Zoonotic, and Parasitic Diseases, the monkeypox outbreak outside of Africa has “nothing strange, nothing we haven’t seen before,” except that it is now occurring in a different location.
She claimed that monkeypox was not as contagious as the COVID-19 virus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) anticipates an increase in monkeypox cases as it expands surveillance in countries where the disease is uncommon.