Concerns about monkeypox are mounting, as cases climb in the United States and abroad. On July 23, the World Health Organization deemed the virus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Governors in New York, California, and Illinois have followed the WHO's lead, while the demand for vaccine doses continues to outpace supply.
Endemic to central and western Africa, the virus is known for popping up on the international radar from time to time, even as recently as 2021. But Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, described the 2022 surge as "an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly, through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little."
In May, shortly after the United States confirmed its first case, The Brink discussed the properties of the virus with John H. Connor, a virologist at Boston University's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) and a School of Medicine associate professor of microbiology. After two months in which more than 6,000 US cases were reported, The Brink spoke with him again about what's changed.
