Is monkeypox gone? Did we win?
Health officials are cautiously optimistic about the monkeypox pandemic that wasn’t. Last month the Department of Health and Human Services announced that the emergency declaration for monkeypox will end on January 31, so just a few weeks.
So how did we dodge that bullet? A monkeypox vaccine was approved for use but wasn’t really rolled out. Some say the gay community mobilized itself to prevent the spread but there isn’t data about how. One virologist says that the virus “essentially loses steam after a couple of rounds in humans.”
None of these seem to be conclusive answers but the data does show that case numbers in the U.S. and Europe have indeed dropped.
In related news, Uganda’s Health Ministry says that the ebola outbreak is also over.
