Almost 500 cases of monkeypox have been detected among London residents
(Picture: REUTERS)There are almost 800 cases of monkeypox across the UK, with an overwhelming majority in London among men aged in their 30s.
Of 624 cases across England with a reported home address, 80 per cent - or 498 cases - are known to be residents in the capital, according to a UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) update on Tuesday.
There have been 766 confirmed cases in England.
Thirty seven cases have been found in South East England, 26 in the North West and 20 in the East of England, but 142 are still under investigation.
A dozen cases have been detected in both West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humber while there were very small numbers in East Midlands, North East and South West England.
There are 18 confirmed cases in Scotland, three in Northern Ireland and six in Wales.
Where gender information is available, 99 percent of cases were male. There are just five confirmed female cases.
The median age of confirmed cases in the UK is 37 years old.
Monkeypox surveillance data in England is compiled daily based on virus test results from the Rare and Imported Pathogens Laboratory.
The virus has spread rapidly since initial infections were confirmed in England from May 6 this year.
Just seven cases of monkeypox were reported in the UK between 2018 and 2021.
Of these, 4 were imported, 2 were cases in household contacts, and 1 was a case in a health care worker involved in the care of an imported case.
There was no documented community transmission in previous outbreaks.
The outbreak has mainly been in gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with men without documented history of travel to endemic countries, UKHSA said.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) is exploring the possibility if monkeypox could be a sexually transmitted disease.
It said it was looking into reports that the monkeypox virus is present in the semen of patients.
The WHO reiterated the rare disease is mainly transmitted via close interpersonal contact.
In recent days, scientists have said they have detected viral DNA in the semen of a handful of monkeypox patients in Italy and Germany.
This includes a lab-tested sample that suggested the virus found in the semen of a single patient was capable of infecting another person and replicating.
Catherine Smallwood, monkeypox incident manager at the WHO in Europe, said it was not known whether recent reports meant the monkeypox virus could be sexually transmitted.
“This may have been something that we were unaware of in this disease before,” she told a press briefing.
“We really need to focus on the most frequent mode of transmission and we clearly see that to be associated with skin to skin contact.”
More than 2,000 cases have been confirmed to WHO from 42 countries, with the majority being reported since May.
