Photo: In 2022, medical staff in California, USA, vaccinated people against monkeypox. \Data photo

• Monkeypox is a zoonosis caused by the monkeypox virus. The monkeypox virus was first discovered in research monkeys in 1958, hence the name “monkeypox”; the first human case of monkeypox occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1970. Monkeypox is mainly spread in Africa, but has spread to more than 100 countries and regions around the world since 2022. The World Health Organization announced in July 2022 that the monkeypox outbreak constituted an “international public health emergency.” On the 14th of this month, due to a surge in monkeypox cases, the WHO once again announced that it constituted an “international public health emergency.”