Monkeypox can leave significant scarring on the body but will not become the next pandemic, according to experts. The UK's first case of the year came two weeks ago and the country's figure has since reached 20.
The infection is most common in remote parts of Central and West Africa, but the World Health Organisation says "more than 80" recent cases of the disease have been recorded in at least 12 countries. The NHS says infections — which can be transmitted through sexual contact — are usually mild and most people recover in a few weeks.
But experts have also warned of the impact monkeypox can have on the body. Dr Phil Whitaker, a GP in Somerset, wrote in the New Statesman: "Affected individuals will, after an incubation period of up to three weeks, develop a flu-like syndrome with fever, muscle aches and gland swelling. After a few days a rash evolves with tiny blisters called vesicles, typically starting on the head and spreading down the body. Just like chickenpox, these can leave scars once healed."
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And Prof Paul Hunter, an epidemiologist at the University of East Anglia, told PA: “200 years ago everybody lusted after milkmaids, and the reason was milkmaids had lovely skin in older times, and that was because they got cowpox so they didn’t catch smallpox, and people who got smallpox often ended up with very scarred skin, scarred faces. You can get that with monkeypox as well because the rash tends to affect the face, the hands and the legs. The scarring, probably, is not the monkeypox itself but when these pox lesions start to weep and break down they get secondary bacterial infection that generally causes the scarring, I believe.”
Poxvirus expert Dr Dennis Hruby described moneypox as a "serious disease". He told BioSpace: "Thousands of lesions are something nobody wants to experience, and when those scabs fall off, they leave scars."
Monkeypox lesions can cause separate issues for those with darker skin, according to Andrea McCollum of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She told the Stat health website: "Darker-skinned individuals may present after healing with hypo-pigmentation, lighter areas where lesions were."
But the medical consensus is that it is "extremely unlikely" monkeypox will become a pandemic, as Prof Hunter told PA. He said: “The important thing is there is a vaccine that works and it is the same vaccine that we used for smallpox but these days, I believe, the best guess I have heard is that it is 85% effective against monkeypox, even if you give it two or three days after somebody has been exposed. Ultimately, this is not particularly infectious unless you have close contact with somebody.
“This isn’t a Covid situation at all and if we get the vaccination right, we should be able to bring it under control fairly quickly. But this issue is always, is it going to be reintroduced? Is this something that is going to be becoming more common in parts of the world where people go for holidays or other reasons, and then we will see it being continually reintroduced into the UK? Because with a disease that’s got an incubation period of typically 12 days, most people will be totally undiagnosable during their return to the UK, so it is not something you could actually pick up on border screening.”
The UK Government has advised anyone concerned that they could be infected to contact NHS 111 or a sexual health clinic. Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at the UKHSA, said: "We are particularly urging men who are gay and bisexual to be aware of any unusual rashes or lesions and to contact a sexual health service without delay if they have concerns... We are contacting any identified close contacts of the cases to provide health information and advice."
The Government has urged people to contact sexual health clinics ahead of visiting. You can read more about the impact of the infections on sexual health services here.
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