The chairman of the World Health Organization Emergency Committee, Professor David L. Heymann, during a press conference said monkeypox may have sparked up again because of sexual activity at European raves.
Heyman said that the disease is containable and not airborne.
“This is not COVID,” he said. “We need to slow it down, but it does not spread in the air and we have vaccines to protect against it.”
Symptoms from the latest outbreak have been relatively mild, with patients usually recovering in a matter of weeks without hospitalization.
“We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected,” he said. “And it looks like the sexual contact has now amplified that transmission.”
Most of the recent confirmed cases in Europe are linked to sexual contact between men.
WHO published a public health advice for gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men.
Spanish officials said monkeypox cases there have been traced to a Gay Pride celebration in the Canary Islands that drew tens of thousands of revelers.
The German cases have been linked to sexual activity at raves.
Madrid’s senior health official Enrique Ruiz Escudero said authorities are investigating possible links between a recent Gay Pride event in the Canary Islands, which drew some 80,000 people, and cases at a Madrid sauna.
Meanwhile “Darklands 2022” released an important notice on their official website stating that
” The health department of the Belgian government has confirmed 3 cases of the Monkeypox virus linked to visitors at Darklands.”
Three cases of Monkeypox have been identified in Belgium, more specifically on Flemish territory. In recent weeks, cases have also been identified in Europe, in particular in the United Kingdom, Portugal and Spain, mainly in men who have sex with men (MSM), but not exclusively.
Darklands 2022 event was held on 4-9 May 2022 in Antwerpen, Belgium.