Washington, May 24 (FN Agency) The World Health Organization has announced that it does not believe the monkeypox outbreak outside of Africa requires mass vaccinations as basic measures like good hygiene can help control its spread, Khaleej Times reported on Tuesday. Richard Pebody, who leads the high-threat pathogen team at WHO Europe, said that immediate supplies of vaccines and antivirals are relatively limited. His comments came as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it was in the process of releasing some Jynneos vaccine doses for use in monkeypox cases.
Similarly, Germany’s government said on Monday that it was assessing options for vaccinations, while Britain has offered them to its healthcare workers. Public health authorities in Europe and North America are investigating more than 100 suspected and confirmed cases of the viral infection in the worst outbreak of the virus outside of Africa, where it is endemic. According to experts the primary measures to control the outbreak are contact tracing and isolation, noting that it is not a virus that spreads very easily, nor has it so far caused serious disease or deaths. They warned that the vaccines used to combat monkeypox can have some significant side-effects.