Health expert says monkeypox is 'not something that has pandemic potential'

Although more than 100 cases of the elusive monkeypox virus have been reported around the world, health experts have said that risk remains low and that there is no chance of “pandemic potential.”

In an interview with Fox News, Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, said that the outbreak is different than the coronavirus and that health officials have the tools required to prevent a major medical crisis.   

“What’s interesting about this outbreak that’s occurring now is it's transmitting person to person with people who haven’t been to any of the endemic areas in Africa. Haven’t had contact with animals. We have got some epidemiological work to do to halt this outbreak,” he said.

“It’s not something that has pandemic potential or anything like COVID-19, but it is something that we need to take corrective action. We need to use the vaccine and figure out how people are getting infected and stop those links in transmission,” he added.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday said that there's no evidence the virus has evolved to be more transmissible.

"This is not COVID," Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the Division of High-Consequence Pathogens and Pathology at the CDC, told reporters on Monday.

The CDC also announced that the federal government is in the process of releasing some vaccines from the country’s stockpile but noted that only those who have been exposed will need to be vaccinated.

The appearance of a case of so-called monkeypox in the United Kingdom on May 7 set off alarm bells about a new viral disease and so far at least 100 cases have been reported around the world – including at least 7 in the United States.

Monkeypox is caused by the orthopoxvirus, which comes from the same family of viruses like smallpox.

"It manifests with pustular eruption (pus-filled pimples) and is a systemic disease that can vary from a mild form… to a more severe disease and even death," explained the advisor on Disease Prevention and Control of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), epidemiologist Enrique Perez, at a press conference on Wednesday.

According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), transmission to humans can occur through contact with an infected animal or human, or with human body material containing the virus. Transmission occurs primarily through large respiratory droplets, although prolonged face-to-face contact is necessary.