On Monday, Denmark announced its first case, Portugal revised its total upward to 37, Italy reported one further infection, and Britain added 37 more cases. To date, WHO has recorded more than 90 cases of monkeypox in a dozen countries including Canada, Spain, Israel, France, Switzerland, the United States, and Australia. On Monday, Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, said “the likelihood of further spread of the virus through close contact, for example during sexual activities among persons with multiple sexual partners, is considered to be high.” “By nature, sexual activity involves intimate contact, which one would expect to increase the likelihood of transmission, whatever a person’s sexual orientation and irrespective of the mode of transmission,” said Mike Skinner, a virologist at Imperial College London. Scientists say it will be difficult to disentangle whether the spread is being driven by sex or merely close contact. Health officials say most of the known cases in Europe have been among men who have sex with men, but anyone can be infected through close contact with a sick person, their clothing, or bedsheets. That marks a significant departure from the disease’s typical pattern of spread in central and western Africa, where people are mainly infected by animals like wild rodents and primates and outbreaks have not spilled across borders.
