Nick Phin

There have been no associated cases identified outside healthcare organizations, local authorities and the NHS have worked quickly to determine the likely cause of this outbreak and taken action to reduce the risk to the public's health.

This person has been isolated and we are taking a highly precautionary approach to ensure that all contacts are traced, the fact that only one of the fifty contacts of the initial monkeypox-infected patient has been infected shows how poorly infectious the virus is.

It is very unusual to see two cases in such a relatively short space of time. We are working hard to contact individuals, including healthcare workers, that might have come into contact with the individual to provide information and health advice, we know that in September 2017, Nigeria experienced a large sustained outbreak of monkeypox.