Monkeypox is a rare infection most commonly found in west or central Africa. There has recently been an increase in cases in the UK, but the risk of catching it is low.
Monkeypox can be passed on from person to person through:
In parts of west and central Africa, monkeypox can also be caught from infected rodents (such as rats, mice and squirrels) if:
Although more people have been diagnosed with it recently, only a small number of people in the UK have had monkeypox and the risk remains low.
You're extremely unlikely to have monkeypox if:
Anyone can get monkeypox.
Currently most cases have been in men who are gay, bisexual or have sex with other men, so it's particularly important to be aware of the symptoms if you're in these groups.
If you get infected with monkeypox, it usually takes between 5 and 21 days for the first symptoms to appear.
The first symptoms of monkeypox include:
A rash usually appears 1 to 5 days after the first symptoms. The rash often begins on the face, then spreads to other parts of the body. This can include the mouth, genitals and anus.
You may also have anal pain or bleeding from your bottom.
The rash is sometimes confused with chickenpox. It starts as raised spots, which turn into small blisters filled with fluid. These blisters eventually form scabs which later fall off.
The symptoms usually clear up in a few weeks. While you have symptoms, you can pass monkeypox on to other people.
Urgent advice: Call a sexual health clinic if:
You have a rash with blisters, anal pain or bleeding from your bottom and have either:
Stay at home and avoid close contact with other people, including sharing towels or bedding, until you've been told what to do.
Call the clinic before visiting.
Tell the person you speak to if you've had close contact with someone who has or might have monkeypox, or if you've recently travelled to central or west Africa.
Stay at home and call 111 for advice if you're not able to contact a sexual health clinic.
Non-urgent advice: Call a GP if:
A child has a rash with blisters and has either:
They should stay at home and avoid close contact with other people, including sharing towels or bedding, until you've been told what to do.
Call the GP surgery before visiting.
Tell the person you speak to if the child had close contact with someone who has or might have monkeypox, or if they've recently travelled to central or west Africa.
Stay at home and call 111 for advice if you're not able to contact a GP.
NHS 111 can tell you what to do if you have a rash but:
Get advice about your symptoms from 111 online
Monkeypox is usually mild and most people recover within a few weeks without treatment.
But, if your symptoms are more severe and you become unwell, you may need treatment in hospital.
The risk of needing treatment in hospital is higher for:
Because the infection can be passed on through close contact, it's important to isolate if you're diagnosed with it.
You may be asked to isolate at home if your symptoms are mild.
GOV.UK has further advice for people infected with Monkeypox who are isolating at home
Monkeypox is caused by a similar virus to smallpox. The smallpox (MVA) vaccine should give a good level of protection against monkeypox.
The NHS is offering the smallpox (MVA) vaccine to people who are most likely to be exposed to monkeypox.
People who are most likely to be exposed include:
Health care workers will usually be offered 2 doses of the vaccine.
Men who are gay, bisexual or have sex with other men will be offered 2 doses of the vaccine. The 2nd dose will be offered from 2 to 3 months after the 1st dose. Your local NHS services will contact you when you can get your 2nd dose.
Your local NHS services may contact you and offer you a vaccine if you are at risk of exposure.
You may also be offered the vaccine alongside other appointments, for example for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).
If you are gay, bisexual or a man who has sex with other men, you can also get the smallpox vaccine from a vaccination site.
If none of the monkeypox vaccination sites are open or suitable for you, contact a sexual health clinic.
Although monkeypox is rare, there are things you can do to reduce your chance of getting it and passing it on.
wash your hands with soap and water regularly or use an alcohol-based hand sanitiser
talk to sexual partners about their sexual health and any symptoms they may have
be aware of the symptoms of monkeypox if you are sexually active, especially if you have new sexual partners
take a break from sex and intimate contact if you have symptoms of monkeypox until you get seen by a doctor and told you are no longer at risk of passing it on
do not share bedding or towels with people who may have monkeypox
do not have close contact (within 1 metre) with people who may have monkeypox
do not go near wild or stray animals, including animals that appear unwell or are dead, while travelling in west and central Africa
do not eat or touch meat from wild animals while travelling in west and central Africa
Page last reviewed: 20 October 2022Next review due: 25 April 2025
Michael Doshier was on his way to a party at the House of Yes, a graffiti-splashed dance club in Bushwick, last Thursday night when he got a text. We actually didnt go in yet, his friend wrote. Theyre giving out monkeypox vaccines so were getting them!
With a vaccine van right outside the club, the decision was easy for Mr. Doshier, 31, a gay man who was worried that he could be at risk of getting monkeypox but who had not yet gotten vaccinated.
He registered with a city health worker and stepped into the white van that was serving as a mobile clinic.
I think its an amazing service, he said afterward.
It was also the vans last night outside the club.
The citys mobile vaccination program for monkeypox, which has placed vans outside community centers, nightclubs and sex parties since late summer, has lost its funding and is coming to an end. The mass vaccination sites that the city set up this summer also closed on Nov. 14.
With monkeypox cases in the city now at an average of three per day, down from more than 70 a day in late July, both New York City and state governments have quietly ended their monkeypox states of emergency, though the federal government has continued its emergency declaration.
Monkeypox vaccinations are being moved to outpatient and sexual health clinics run by the city hospital system and private providers. The city, which funded the response without federal aid, says it is now moving to make monkeypox vaccination part of routine health care, banking that those at risk will still get both doses of the two-dose vaccine even if it is less convenient.
Dr. Ted Long, senior vice president at New York City Health + Hospitals, the citys public hospital system, said he was working on a proposal to bring back the vans which administered 3,330 doses at 72 different sites to offer both vaccines and other sexual health care in the future. The city has classified monkeypox as a sexually transmitted infection, because it has been spreading primarily through sexual contact, particularly among men who have sex with men.
Our goal with the mobile units is always to use them to tear down every conceivable barrier that we can to make it as easy for you to get vaccinated and as easy for you to get protected as possible, he said.
The city health workers who have spent months visiting clubs expressed mixed emotions as they worked last weekend. Showered with gratitude by those getting doses, they said they would miss helping and educating people about the disease. But they also said the numbers of people getting doses had fallen as the outbreak receded.
At the House of Yes, 11 people got vaccinated Thursday night. On Sunday night at the Eagle NYC, a leather bar in Manhattan, 14 people did.
Among them was Karim Walker, 43, who lives in East New York, Brooklyn, and works in a law firm in Lower Manhattan. He had to travel to the Bronx to get his first dose in July, and had a one- word answer for why he had not yet gotten his second dose.
Timing, he said.
While we would love for anything to be extended, this was an emergency operation, and emergencies end, said Jennifer Medina Matsuki, who normally directs H.I.V. outreach for the health department but since June 18 has been spending nights educating people about monkeypox. Still, she said, she was relieved that this emergency didnt become something larger.
When monkeypox was first diagnosed in New York at the end of May, it was not clear it would go this way. The federal government had developed a new smallpox vaccine that would work against monkeypox, but most of it was in a Danish factory, not ready to be shipped. Testing was hard to access, and health providers needed to be educated about a disease that had never spread globally at this scale.
As for the vaccine, there was limited research showing how well it would work against monkeypox. The citys initial vaccine rollout was marred by glitches and doses went disproportionately to white residents. But the combination of voluntary behavior change, vaccine doses and immunity caused by infection has dramatically slowed cases, both in New York and nationally.
Across the nation, there are now about 25 cases a day being reported, down from a peak of about 450 per day on Aug. 7. Even so, the White House has not declared victory.
While we are seeing decreases nationally, theres still some areas where were seeing some embers that are glowing, said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the deputy coordinator of the White Houses monkeypox response. Were not done with the work that we need to do to really get us to the goal of no domestic transmission in the United States.
Case rates remain higher among Black and Hispanic men than among white men, and some southern states, like Texas, have had less success in reducing cases than New York, according to Centers for Disease Control data. Monkeypox is also causing serious disease in people with H.I.V. and has led to at least 11 deaths across the country. The concern is that the disease will continue to circulate among those most vulnerable and occasionally flare into outbreaks.
In New York City, the news is largely good. The flood of patients that sexual health clinics saw this summer has slowed to a trickle, said Dr. Jason Zucker, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
But racial disparities remain in who has been vaccinated, and Black men in particular are behind. Health care providers also still have to reach tens of thousands of people who need second doses, which cannot be given until 28 days after the first.
To date, the city has administered about 100,000 first doses and 50,000 second doses of the vaccine, enough to help bring the citys outbreak to the tail end, said Peter Meacher, chief medical officer at the Callen Lorde sexual health clinic.
Still, the city estimated in July that 150,000 New Yorkers were at high-risk for the disease, so tens of thousands of them remain unvaccinated. New York City, the early epicenter of the national outbreak, has recorded about 3,800 virus cases since May. Nationally, there have been about 29,000 cases since the outbreak began, and the disease continues to spread globally.
A particular focus of the mobile units was commercial sex parties, which represent some of the highest-risk settings for monkeypox transmission. Most gay bathhouses in New York City shut their doors during the AIDS epidemic, but over the years, they were replaced by sex parties that operate in low-key or clandestine venues.
As the citys gay population was hit hard by monkeypox this summer, the main sex parties voluntarily closed their doors for between six weeks and two months, said Joseph Osmundson, a microbiologist at New York University, who helped to act as a liaison between the parties and the city. When the parties reopened in early September, the city stationed vaccine vans a discreet distance away.
Partygoers flocked to the vans. At one party, Inferno, about 60 percent of attendees lined up to get shots on the first night, Dr. Long said. At a G.B.U., or Golden Boys University party, 102 people got a vaccine dose when the party reopened on Sept. 9, said Garline Almonord, the supervisor of the vaccine minibus that night.
It was exciting to see that many people around, she said.
Infection numbers did not spike as the sex clubs reopened, said Dr. Long. As the weeks passed, traffic to the vans lessened as most attendees said they had already been vaccinated. By last weekend, at G.B.U.s clandestine Brooklyn location, only four people had received doses by 1 a.m.
For those people, however, the presence of the van was a relief. Ronald Cortez, 38, came to get a shot at about 11:30 p.m. He said he had the first shot in August, but lost track of time and did not get the second.
Hieronimo Torres, 26, who works at the door checking IDs, got his first dose, knowing it was the vans last night at the party. Ive been meaning to do it, he said.
Nate Schweber contributed reporting.
Other Languages:Espaol | | | | Kreyl ayisyen | | | Italiano | Polski | | | Franais |
COVID-19, RSV and flu are spreading in NYC this winter season. We strongly recommend everyone to wear masks in all indoor public settings to reduce the spread of these viruses.
Use these important tools to fight respiratory viruses:
Gathering with others increases the risk of spreading respiratory viruses, especially if everyone is not vaccinated. Get vaccinated for COVID-19 and the flu and get tested for COVID-19 before attending holiday gatherings.
Travel may involve crowds and going to places with high levels of COVID-19, flu or RSV. Whether you travel by plane, bus or train, wear a high-quality mask in public settings and while aboard vehicles. Consider additional precautions if you are traveling with or visiting older adults, infants and people with weakened immune systems or underlying health conditions.
We can all work to reduce the spread of COVID-19 by staying informed and taking the necessary steps in prevention. Learn more in the pages below about what you can do for yourself, your family and your community.
COVID vaccinations are lowest among the youngest people. What to know The State Journal-Register
COVID response coordinator: People confused about whether they need updated booster The Hill
