SWEDEN
( I seem to remember the same was said about AIDS way back )

Professor warns: Monkey pox can become airborne
Posted 12:11 p.m

Alarms about the virus infection monkeypox replace each other in the media. Now Professor Niklas Arnberg at Umeå University also warns that the virus can mutate and become airborne.

Last week, the World Health Organization, WHO, announced that monkeypox is classified as an international health emergency.

READ ALSO: Monkey pox an international health crisis according to the WHO

Shortly afterwards, the Swedish government and the Public Health Agency held a press conference to announce that a case of the new clade I variant had been found in Stockholm. The case was also the first outside Africa.

READ ALSO: The Minister of Social Affairs and the Public Health Agency held a press conference on monkeypox

This weekend, Niklas Arnberg, professor at the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Umeå University, participated in TV4 Nyhetsmorgon where he warned that the virus can mutate but also become airborne.

- That risk cannot be ruled out, which is why we take this so seriously. That is why the WHO is also declaring a global emergency, I would say, Arnberg said, continuing:

- This is a so-called DNA virus, it mutates slowly compared to, for example, the coronavirus. Having said that, there is a risk that it could develop and mutate and become airborne, we really don't want that.

Changed name
The virus was first discovered in monkeys and was therefore named monkeypox virus and the disease was named monkeypox. But on January 1, 2023, the disease suddenly changed its name to "mpox". This after the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended the name change.

The background to the name change was that a group of researchers demanded a "non-discriminatory" and "non-stigmatizing" name because they believed that monkeypox is too linked to Africa.