Monkeypox Likely Spread By Sex At 2 Raves In Europe, Expert Says

The agency’s Europe director warned that festivals and parties could accelerate spread.Still, at a public session on Monday, WHO officials described the outbreak as “containable” and cautioned against stigmatizing affected groups, saying the disease can infect anyone.The agency said the cases appeared to be linked to a monkeypox virus that was first detected in exported cases from Nigeria to Britain, Israel and Singapore in 2018 and 2019.Authorities in Britain, Spain and Portugal have said most of the cases identified so far were in young men whose infections were picked up when they sought help for lesions at sexual health clinics.Heymann, who is also a professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the monkeypox outbreak was likely a random event that might be traceable to a single infection.“It’s very possible there was somebody who got infected, developed lesions on the genitals, hands or somewhere else, and then spread it to others when there was sexual or close, physical contact,” Heymann hypothesized.