Medicines are not normally needed to treat monkeypox. The illness is usually mild and most people infected will recover within a few weeks without needing treatment. But there are vaccines that can be used to control monkeypox outbreaks, which some countries are already using. And treatments do exist for those who become quite ill from the virus.
Monkeypox belongs to the Orthopoxvirus genus of viruses, which includes smallpox. Luckily, due to something called cross-protection, smallpox vaccines also work for monkeypox.
Although the world was declared free of smallpox in 1980, many countries keep stocks of smallpox vaccines for emergencies. For example, the smallpox vaccine is used to protect laboratory workers who accidentally come into contact with pox viruses (such as monkeypox or vaccinia – a pox virus that is similar to smallpox but less harmful). They are also kept in case of a terrorist attacks that might use smallpox as a biological weapon.
