It has been a mere nine weeks since the United Kingdom announced it had detected four cases of monkeypox, a virus endemic only in West and Central Africa. In that time, the number of cases has mushroomed to nearly 13,000 in over 60 countries…. The growth in cases and the geographic spread has been rapid and relentless.
Now, even as global health officials race to curb spread of the virus, most experts polled by STAT said they don’t believe it will be possible to contain it.
“I think we missed that train at this point,” said Gary Kobinger, director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and a member of an expert committee that advises the World Health Organization’s Emergencies Program.
Not everyone is categorical — or pessimistic.
Related on the SLP
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Rosamund Lewis, the World Health Organization’s technical lead on monkeypox, expressed the belief that with a lot of effort, transmission in the population of men who have sex with men can be stopped.
“I do think it’s still possible. I am so not giving up yet,” said Walensky.
