Monkeypox outbreak "eye-opener": WHO chief scientist

World Health Organization (WHO) Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan has termed the outbreak of Monkeypox as an eye-opener. In an exclusive interview with NDTV, he told that the smallpox vaccination program has been stopped since 1979-80. He said that the outbreak of monkeypox has been "sleep-wake" for us as we need to prepare ourselves to guard against the deadly outbreak at all times. They have very limited dosages. Countries are stockpiling these vaccines if the smallpox outbreak is organic and accidental."

Soumya Swaminathan said that a Denmark-based company Bavarian Nordic has developed a vaccine for monkeypox, but there is no efficacy data. This data needs to be collected immediately. To a question whether monkeypox could be worse than a mutant virus of Covid, the WHO chief scientist said that the two cannot be directly compared. Despite the data not being available, it is clear that monkeypox is a separate virus and will not mutate at the same rate as Covid.

She said, "We need to do sequencing and all the other things. We need global sharing of data. Right now we have to stop it from becoming a pandemic. We have "caught" it early." Talking about India, here's Monkeypox.