The virus is behaving unusually from how it used to behave in the past.

We're encouraging countries to do surveillance, contact tracing.

It causes flu-like symptoms like fever, chills, muscle aches and headaches.

A virus behaving unusually.

Contact tracing flew like symptoms.

It all sounds familiar, but these reports are not about the coronavirus.

They're about monkeypox, also known as MPX.

Steven Thrasher is a professor at Northwestern University at the Medil School of Journalism.

And he's the author of the forthcoming book, The Viral Underclass,

The Human Toll, went in equality and disease collide.

He says monkeypox or MPX was identified decades ago, first seen in animals

with the first known human infection in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Most outbreaks have popped up in Central and Western Africa until recently.

We should be concerned that it has affected people on the African continent for a long time.

We shouldn't dismiss it because of that.

It's had the spill over into Europe and North America in the past few months.

Now, after two plus years of dealing with COVID, you might be thinking, oh no, not another virus.

But to be clear, there are big differences between monkeypox and COVID.

COVID is airborne. Monkpox is not. It is spread by close physical contact.

It's much less contagious. And the strain currently spreading around the world is so far less deadly than COVID.

And there's already a vaccine. But doctors and researchers are taking note, keeping an eye on how the disease spreads and to whom.

It's moving right now between communities of men who have sex with men, gay, men and bisexual, men.

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