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Electron micrograph from 2003
Photo: Cynthia S. Goldsmith / dpa
The British health authority UKHSA recommends a three-week quarantine for close contacts of people infected with monkeypox.
It is highly likely to be infected if you either live in the same household with a sick person, have had sexual intercourse with such a person or have changed their bed linen without protective clothing, according to a statement.
This group should therefore receive a protective smallpox vaccination in addition to the recommendation for quarantine.
In particular, contact with pregnant women, children under the age of twelve and people with suppressed immune systems should be avoided, it said.
In Germany there are still no general recommendations for contact persons of monkeypox cases.
However, they are currently working on it, according to the Robert Koch Institute.
However, health authorities could already order isolation and quarantine at any time, according to a spokeswoman.
Two dozen cases in the UK
Around two dozen cases of monkeypox have been identified in the UK.
It is likely that new ones will be added every day, UKHSA boss Susan Hopkins said over the weekend.
New numbers should be released on Monday.
Infections in the UK, like those in other countries, now often, but not exclusively, affect men who have had sex with other men (read more here).
There will be no large-scale vaccination campaign, Hopkins said.
For the current vaccinations, a "third generation" vaccine is used against the smallpox disease in humans, which is believed to be extinct.
Experts assume that smallpox vaccines also protect against monkeypox.
“We use them in people who are at high risk of developing symptoms and we use them early, especially within four or five days (...),” said the agency chief.
That reduces the risk of illness.
A total of four cases of monkeypox had been registered in Germany by Sunday afternoon.
After the first case of illness recorded in Munich, there were three other confirmed infections in Berlin, as announced by the Federal Ministry of Health.
bam/dpa
