Though MonkeyPox has been around for years, 2022 outbreak of MonkeyPox started with first reported case of MonkeyPox on 4th May 2022 when a patient who recently travelled to Nigeria got admitted in a UK hospital with fever and unexplained rashes similar to MonkeyPox. A PCR test on a vesicular swab further confirmed the MonkeyPox diagnosis (MPX).
With next couple of months, more than 10,000+ cases got reported from worldwide with most of the cases Europe (80%) followed by Americas(10%) and rest of the others from other continents. Asia reported fewer cases in July2022 when compared with other continents which leads to suspicion that smallpox vaccination could have played a role in preventing the spread of MonkeyPox
But it remains to be seen whether there are any variants of MonkeyPox which can make the virus more infectious or whether smallpox vaccination can effectively prevent MonkeyPox can be said only after scientific research on patients infected by MonkeyPox virus. The actual number of cases can be much more as most of them might go undetected due to various reasons.