South Africa: Monkeypox - Experts Answer 10 Common Questions

28 June 2022
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
analysis By Elri Voigt

This week, South Africa recorded its first case of monkeypox. Spotlight asked the experts and consulted documents from the World Health Organization and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases for answers to our top 10 questions about the disease.

Last Thursday morning, Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla announced that a 30-year-old man from Gauteng with no recent travel history had become the first person in South Africa to be diagnosed with monkeypox.

According to a statement by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), more than 3,000 people have been diagnosed with monkeypox since May 2022 in several European countries, the US, Canada, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. It is the first multicountry outbreak of the disease, according to the NICD, and also the largest recorded outbreak of monkeypox.

Below are answers to 10 common questions about monkeypox.

What is monkeypox?

Dr Aida Sivro, senior scientist at the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa (Caprisa), says the disease is caused by infection with the monkeypox virus, which belongs to the same family of viruses as the smallpox virus.

According to Sivro, there are two known types of monkeypox virus: the West African Clade and the...

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