Biden Thinks ‘Everybody Should Be Concerned’ About Global Rise in Monkeypox Cases: ‘If It Were to Spread, It’s Consequential’

President Joe Biden warned on Sunday that the increasing number of monkeypox cases worldwide “is something that everybody should be concerned about,” and added that his administration is looking into possible vaccines.

Asked by a reporter before he departed South Korea what his health advisers have told him about monkeypox, Biden replied that “they haven’t told me the level of exposure yet, but it is something that everybody should be concerned about.”

“We’re working hard to figure out what we do and what vaccine, if any, may be available for it,” he continued. “But it is a concern in the sense that if it were to spread, it’s consequential. That’s all they have told me.”

Monkeypox is a viral disease that produces smallpox-like lesions, and studies have suggested the smallpox vaccine would be largely effective against monkeypox as well.

There are currently about 80 confirmed cases of monkeypox worldwide — including one case in Massachusetts — and 50 more suspected ones, according to the World Health Organization.

So far, no deaths have been linked to the outbreak, but scientists are unsure why the disease is popping up in people who have no ties to central and West Africa.

“I’m stunned by this. Every day I wake up and there are more countries infected,” Oyewale Tomori, former head of the Nigerian Academy of Science and sits on several WHO advisory boards, told PBS NewsHour. “This is not the kind of spread we’ve seen in West Africa, so there may be something new happening in the West.”

Watch above, via New York Times