The recent monkeypox outbreak has shown signs of spreading across the world, with cases being reported in Germany, United States, Australia and many more countries. Health agencies and experts have also started weighing in with inputs on the disease.

The World Health Organization, in a statement released on Monday, said that the spread of monkeypox was “containable”. The statement further explained that the transmission can be controlled outside countries that have not yet declared monkeypox an endemic. 

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The list of non-endemic countries includes Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, the United States and the United Kingdom. Monkeypox is commonly found in central and west African nations, most of which have previously called it an endemic.

The European Health Agency released a similar statement and said that the risk of monkeypox spreading widely in the general population is “very low”, AFP reported.

Dr David Heymann, who previously headed the emergency department of the World Health Organization, said that the leading theory to explain the spread of the disease was sexual transmission among gay and bisexual men at two raves held in Spain and Belgium, Associated Press reported.

“We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission”, Heymann told the press agency.

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Germany’s government, however, said that it expects to see a larger outbreak of monkeypox in the country as it “mainly appears to lie with sexual contacts among men.” The statement from the government concluded that the confirmed cases have been connected to exposure at “party events including on Gran Canaria and in Berlin, where sexual activity took place.”

In recent years, the disease has been fatal in up to 6% of infections, but no deaths have been reported among the current cases, AP reported.