Monkeypox outbreak 'was likely sparked by sex at two raves in Spain and Belgium'

The growing global outbreak of monkeypox cases is sexual transmission can probably be traced to sexual activity at two raves in Europe, a top expert has said.

Dr David Heymann, a senior adviser to the World Health Organisation, said the outbreak is best described as ‘random event’.

Health officials have not ruled out other explanations but the leading theory to explain the outbreak is sexual transmission at two erotic parties in Spain and Beglium, he added.

Dr Heymann said: ‘We know monkeypox can spread when there is close contact with the lesions of someone who is infected, and it looks like sexual contact has now amplified that transmission.’

There are now around 200 confirmed and suspected cases across a dozen countries, with 57 in the UK.

According to the WHO, the cases are mainly spreading through sexual contact between men.

Monkeypox cases have rarely occurred outside central and western Africa, where it is endemic in animals, and have never amounted to a full-scale outbreak.

The chief of the WHO’s smallpox research team said: ‘We’ve seen a few cases in Europe over the last five years, just in travelers, but this is the first time we’re seeing cases across many countries at the same time in people who have not traveled to the endemic regions in Africa.’

The United Nations’ Aids agency has warned that racist and homophobic fearmongering could undermine efforts to combat the virus.

UNAIDS stressed that all kinds of close physical contact can cause transmission, so the virus can affect anyone.

This includes contact with a sick person as well as their belongings, such as clothing or bedsheets.

The agency’s deputy executive director Matthew Kavanagh said: ‘Stigma and blame undermine trust and capacity to respond effectively during outbreaks like this one.

‘Experience shows that stigmatising rhetoric can quickly disable evidence-based response by stoking cycles of fear, driving people away from health services, impeding efforts to identify cases and encouraging ineffective, punitive measures.’

Mike Skinner, a virologist at Imperial College London. added: ‘By nature, sexual activity involves intimate contact, which one would expect to increase the likelihood of transmission, whatever a person’s sexual orientation and irrespective of the mode of transmission.’

Health officials say there is a ‘high likelihood’ that the virus will continue to spread through ‘close contact’.

Cases so far have been mild, with no deaths reported, and smallpox vaccines are known to be effective against the disease.

Symptoms usually include fever, chills, rash and lesions on the face or genitals.

Most patients recover in a few weeks without requiring hospital treatment, and new antiviral drugs targeting monkeypox are in develoment.

Around 6% of all cases in recent years have been fatal.

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