A senior executive of the World Health Organization said Monday that the organization has no evidence that the monkeypox virus has mutated, noting that the disease, which is endemic in West and Central Africa, has not changed.
“The mutations are usually fewer with this virus, but the genetic sequencing of cases will help to better identify and understand the current wave of spread,” Rosamund Lewis, director of the Smallpox Department of the WHO emergency program, told reporters.
And the mutations that occur in viruses to produce other copies of them, and hinder the efforts of scientists to search for ways to prevent or treat the diseases that cause them.
In the same context, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (European Health Agency) announced on Monday that the risk of the rare disease spreading among the population on a large scale is “extremely low”.
“Most of the current cases were accompanied by mild symptoms of the disease, and for the general public, the probability of spread is very low,” said Andrea Amon, the agency’s director.
But, she added, “the possibility of the virus spreading through close contact between people with multiple sexual partners was considered high.”
