Singapore is not recommending mass vaccination against monkeypox currently after the World Health Organization called the global spread of the disease a public health emergency of international concern.

The benefits do not outweigh the risks of such a move “given the self-limiting nature of the disease,” health minister Ong Ye Kung said in a Facebook post Monday. Four imported and four local cases have been detected so far in the city-state, and the patients were promptly isolated with no evidence of further community transmission.

In countries where the virus has already been detected, the WHO recommends governments create response plans with the “goal of stopping human-to-human transmission,” focusing on high-risk groups.

More than 16,000 confirmed cases have been found across 75 countries and regions during the current outbreak, although most are from Europe, with a large proportion of infections among men who’ve had sex with men, according to the WHO.

Source:
courtesy of BLOOMBERG

by Low De Wei

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