Monkeypox cases are rising—here’s what we know so far
An outbreak of monkeypox, which is related to smallpox, has public health officials concerned. But the virus can be contained with vaccines that are already stockpiled and available in some countries.
When experts in the United Kingdom confirmed the first case of monkeypox on May 7 this year, epidemiologist Andrea McCollum and her colleagues at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention kept a close watch.
Human monkeypox infections are rare, especially outside of Central and Western Africa where the virus is endemic in animals and circulates primarily in heavily forested areas. Since 2018, only eight cases had been confirmed in non-endemic countries including Israel, Singapore, the U.K., and the U.S.—and all were associated with travel, just like the May 7 patient, who had taken a trip to Nigeria.
But as cases with no known travel links to Africa popped up in several countries, alarm
